The number of re-arming trucks behind the tanks was in the hundreds, ripping the beautiful jungles of Gilese to shreds. Following Bellona tradition: “If it’s beautiful the first time you run it over, reverse and try again.”
Force 431 with McDougall at its lead, formed a semicircle as red dots showing Maraukian life-forms appeared in front of them. The outer edges of the formation linked up with the rest of the advancing Bellona.
“Guns up, ladies and gents. It’s a target-rich environment. Watch for friendlies,” McDougall commed the tanks kilometers away from one another as it met with the Maraukians still in the interior building factories or advancing to take cities. The whole tank rocked as the main gun fired out a shell weighing three tons. It released bomblets over the Maraukians, hitting the ground and coming up again to their head height again before exploding, creating a wave of shrapnel. Flechettes followed from the sweeper barrel as it rotated into place, firing in the two seconds it took the autoloader to put the three-ton shells into its chamber.
“I need a reload,” McDougall commed his supply centurion as a truck raced from the rear. “Laefertie?”
“On it already.” The blow-out compartments opened, revealing a single tube. Two pincers dropped from the truck’s front, grabbing the Bellona and pushing forward a matching tube into the Bellona. Within twenty seconds, the truck’s tube receded as its pincers rotated up and it turned away, the blow-out hatches closing.
“Robert, rolling artillery five kilometers out.”
McDougall made his view screen of his surroundings smaller by bringing his hands together and moved it to the side; he brought up the map of a swarm of red against the green symbols of the Bellona to the other half watching as artillery barrages kilometers away laid in targets, okaying them as they fired. The air howled as the artillery’s 210mm accel tubes and their 140mm multi-launchers filled the air. Hundreds of thousands of rounds filled the air, shadowing the Bellona as they passed over. McDougall remembered a quote from the ill-fated Spartans. They had been told that the archers of the Persian army were so many that their arrows would blot out the sun. To which they replied: “Good. Then we will fight in the shade.”
McDougall grinned ferally as the bone-shaking main gun fired into the solid wall of Maraukians. “Slow pace. Don’t want to get in and among the bastards, Valentine.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Robert, you copy?”
“Sent to the other commanders already.”
Instead of the whiny voice he’d had when checking the hatches, his voice was now all business as he was the nerve center of the assault force. He might be a keeper, McDougall thought, as Mark opened a channel to him.
“McDougall, if you want to keep your current pace, we can help keep up the pressure.”
“I don’t see how, but give it a try and I’ll advise my people accordingly.”
“My gods.”
“We aren’t even allowed anti-matter weapons. They’ve got enough on them to blow up a continent,” Chang said, over exaggerating.
Lackey reflected what McDougall’s disbelieving eyes saw as Phantoms knelt on their respective Bellona. Anti-matter grenades, the size of a ping-pong ball, launched themselves over three kilometers, creating a killing radius of a kilometer and working in perfect synchronization with the Bellona. They shot between their flat, expanding rectangular flechette blasts and created a moving wall of fire as he and Lackey blasted anything left moving. The wall of death walked over the Maraukians, their plasma cannons and rail guns more accurate as they had time to adjust.
“Get me those fucking herd commanders,” McDougall barked at his support gunners and the Phantoms.
“Bellona 958 took a direct hit to the turret—they’re walking fire.” Before he could finish, the Phantoms had changed their aim onto the grouped herd commanders running around trying to avoid being hit as they walked their fire across the Bellona. As their normals followed their commanders’ fire, laying on with their smaller rail guns and plasma cannons, the Phantoms’ M20s came up, spitting anti-matter rounds through the hail storm and leaving five-hundred-meter craters around each herd commander. The normals, now confused, fired wildly at the advancing Bellona.
“Reactor unstable. Initiating shutdown.” Robert’s voice was calm as he dropped the blast doors around the He3 fusion reactors. He cut them off just in time as one blew inside the blast shield. Its power output bled into the ground through a grounding rod instead of through the entire electronics system. The temperature, though, soared to five hundred degrees Celsius in the few milliseconds it took the blast shield to close fully.
Goddamn sorry bastards. McDougall thought of the tankers’ fate of dying in the very thing that kept them alive.
“Crew a little injured but so far fine. Phantoms checking Bellona systems,” Mark said.
McDougall dragged up a schematic of the Bellona, blowing it up as he saw warning signs over the Bellona right where the users would be. “How did you?”
“We cut them out. Might take a bit to repair but they’re alive.”
“Robert, get some repair trucks on that Bellona. I want it up and running as fast as possible. Also get medical to them.”
“Moving them to Bellona.” Robert sounded confused.
“The Phantoms ripped them out of the tank before she blew,” he said in way of reply, changing to Valentine. “We good to pick up pace?”
“Yeah, the Phantoms are taking over the operations area of the Bellona with their M20s. We’re good to go.”
“All right, ram the fuckers. Support gunners, give the Phantoms all calls of fire.” He switched back to Mark. “Mark, I switched my support gunners under your control.”
“Thanks, McDougall. We’ll use it wisely. We need ammo resupply, though.”
“Got it. Robert, we need ammunition for Phantoms.” After a confirmation, he told Mark, “Ammunition should be en route, Mark.”
“Okay, we’ll let them really have it now.”
McDougall realized he was getting used to Mark’s speed by just not trying to organize words but letting it flow over him and letting his brain understand it. In turn, he became faster himself at comming.
“Support vehicles are with the Bellona—say the tank’s out but the crew’s fine, if a little shook up at having mono-blades centimeters from their heads and bodies cut their Bellona apart and Phantoms rip them from the bellies of their tanks.”
“Good. Status on artillery?”
“Rolling still in front of us by five kilometers. I kept them updated on our changing speeds. Trucks inbound for resupply.”
The truck re-docked as before. This time, a legionnaire hauled a black box to the top of it. Mark dropped down, grabbing it and hauling it onto his back; he ran back to his position, throwing his other Phantoms ammo blocks.
“We have a call of hellfire ready at your disposal for final clearance,” Mark said.
A symbol appeared on McDougall’s view screen. He pulled it onto the map, whistling and grinning as he looked at the data.
“We’ve got reports from assault forces three and two—they’re under heavy fire. They’re slowing pace considerably. Two is three tanks out, nine down. Three is one down, four out.”
“Valentine, shift forces to help cover three and two.”
“Rog.”
The tanks that had been coming closer now moved apart as they expanded to cover more area.
“Assault one’s commander is down!”
“McDougall, one of my Phantoms can run communications for the new commander.”
“Do it.”
“Laefertie?”
“Running fine, boss. Moving ammo to support.”
“Valentine?”
“Good on course—shifted to help cover the other sectors.”
“Lackey, Chang?”
“Good here, boss. Covering Phantoms as they call for fire. Countermeasures on full automatic.”
Happy, McDougall focused on his turret. As the barrels changed
, he stroked the trigger and cut through Maraukians already softened up by artillery. His mounted gun above him fired across an invisible line. He cleared his view screen except for his 360-degree view of the concentration of Maraukians and his tanks’ positions and the Phantoms mostly running in between the tanks, using their overwhelming fire to pick off herd commanders and focus their herds’ fire onto places the Bellona weren’t.
McDougall watched as the circle tightened. The symbol for hell storm flashed; he picked it, placing it over the middle area of Maraukians where their assault barges had landed and pressed Accept.
The Phantoms jumped to the ground, crouching as rockets lifted from their backs. Some Maraukian herd commanders saw them focusing their fire on the missiles that blew up in mid-air before accelerating beyond even their sensors could detect, disappearing into the sky.
Then the Phantoms ran, jumping back on their tanks, adding their firepower back to the Bellona.
McDougall pulled the tank off automatic again as he fired the flechette shells at the Maraukians. Each shell was basically two and a half tons of flechettes sealed as tightly together as possible, with a discarding covering and accel plate. The accel plate, when activated, released its anti-matter charge, ramming the entire thing down the tube. The flechette’s burst was shaped by the rectangular end; as the covering was discarded, millions of flechettes burst from the sweeper barrel, traveling five thousand kilometers a second in an expanding rectangular wave washing over Maraukians, trees, and anything in front of it. It was the universe’s biggest tracked shotgun.
Millions of Maraukians swarmed in an area fifty kilometers wide, packed shoulder to shoulder. Artillery exacted a massive toll but still there was so many that kept on coming, always coming. The Bellona slowed, as for as many Maraukians died, two or three stepped into their place, hyper-aggressive and baying for blood as they fired back defiantly. Like a cornered rat, they fought viciously with plasma and rail guns. Some whose herd commanders had been killed charged the tanks without guidance, with their vibro-blades vibrating fast enough to cut through anything in a slash, even Bellona armor.
“Slow the pace more. Robert, reload.”
“Impact in ten. Tell everyone to stop their advance.”
McDougall didn’t know why Mark would ask him to, but he trusted him and in battle that trust mattered. “Robert, order a complete stop.”
“All forces halt!” Robert’s voice yelled through every Bellona as they ground to a halt abruptly.
“So, Mark, mind telling me what this is about?”
“Splash in two.”
One. McDougall’s view screen went white then black as some sensors not fast enough to dim themselves went out and others dimmed as much as possible. Then came a scathing heat wave and pressure wave, shaking the Bellona as if it were a baby’s rattle as nothing that big should ever feel. Then the successive sounds of multiple objects smashing through the sound barriers left McDougall’s ears ringing as his view screen flashed back to life.
“We’re good to move, McDougall.”
“The gods?” McDougall turned the statement into a question as the final fifty kilometers filled with Maraukians was now stripped down tens of meters. Trees were thrown, as if toothpicks, in every direction—some landing on the Bellona and their support trucks. McDougall’s sensors now showed the area was filled with a few thousand Maraukians left instead of eight million.
“Lightning ballistic missiles—they do the job.”
“I’d say. Robert, get everyone to move up to the ridge. Kill anything left alive in it. Once done, we’ll move back and clear up any Maraukian that went for a little trip over our heads.”
“Boss, what was that?”
“Tell you later. Get it done.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Mark, can you check our rear?”
“Gotcha. I’ll take half of my Phantoms.”
“Agreed.”
Ten Phantoms got off their tanks, taking off in a ground-eating lope to the rear.
Holy shit, they were outside for that? McDougall thought about riding on the Bellona in the middle of the hell storm which had descended on them. Damn stubborn bastards. He laughed to himself as he looked at his view screen, studying the crater in close detail. It had been hit with what was equivalent to fifty megatons of TNT, around the same output of the largest bomb tested—before the united Terran world had continued into space—by Russia, one of the separate nations. It had been felt in what was then Norway and Finland, breaking windows. McDougall didn’t doubt that the mega-scrapers hundreds of kilometers away had seen the fireball and felt the explosion.
“What the fuck was that?” Legatus legionis Damus said over a direct channel to McDougall.
Definitely saw it. “Direct fire mission by the Phantom Lords, sir.”
“Of course it was.” Damus sighed. “Make sure they don’t blow up the entire planet.”
“Yes, Legatus legionis.”
The channel cut as McDougall thought of the Legatus legionis watching from his carrier hundreds of kilometers away in space.
“Mark, please keep the fireworks down a little bit. Legatus legionis saw it—from orbit.”
“There’s not much left for us anyway,” Mark shrugged.
Chapter 59
SLS Moby
Gilese Actual, Gilese system
11/3353
Mark and the Phantom Lords had been on Moby for a week, eating and sleeping while running maintenance on their heavily damaged suits. Evan was stepping into Ava’s position with ease, being liked by most of the Phantoms.
Mark had opted—as well as the rest of the chain of command—to sleep and live in the same area as the other Phantom Lords. Interacting with other people without a suit was still weird. It sounded weird to talk with their own mouths instead of comming one another. Jarek and Queen were recovering rapidly. Queen’s legs were almost fully regrown and Jarek’s arm was already fine, looking identical to the one he’d lost except for the hair-thin scar on his bicep. The Phantoms’ armor looked as if it was scarred with more purple than black. Lines showed where rounds and shrapnel had come too close.
The hatch cycled as Legatus legionis Damus walked in through the door. Everyone snapped to attention, saluting as they did so.
“At ease. Grab a seat. You, too, Captain Chen.”
The Phantoms did as they were told, sitting on their bunks closest to Damus.
“We’ll be taking on Senators Yorsht and Gurrera the day after next and then proceeding with two super dreadnaughts and four battlecruisers to Earth. Phantoms, you’re on security detail. Chen, support if we need to get out. We’re going to have talks—if they want to or not. I’m not going to lie. I’m fucking outraged at what they did to the Phantoms, so I don’t care what they say. We’ll invite them and broadcast to every damn human planet in the universe to let them know who we are, and what’s been going on the past two millennia. Though I want professionalism if we go planet-side—best behavior.”
“You have my word, Legatus legionis.” Mark glanced at the other Phantoms, who acknowledged him, even if reluctantly.
“All right. In three days, we’ll move to Earth. Captain Chen, you’re in charge of the space legion deployment.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get a list to you by the end of light schedule.”
“Thank you. Phantoms, I know I’m asking you a lot, but I know you’ll pull through.”
“Thank you, Primus. Full loadout?”
“Yes. We don’t know what they’ll do. If they try to frag you again, leave no one standing.” Damus’s eyes where cold as his lips pulled back in a wolf-like snarl.
The Phantoms’ eyes replied their hunger.
“After this is done, judgment will be passed on those who ordered this,” Mark said solemnly.
“As it should. No one fucks with the legion. Rip them out, leaf and root.”
“We will, Legatus legionis. Don’t doubt that.”
Damus nodded knowingly at Mark, wh
o returned the gesture.
“All right, I’ll let you get the preparations ready. I have a briefing I have to read up on.”
The Phantoms and Captain Chen stood, saluting as Damus walked out.
“And for Jupiter’s sake, stop saluting every damned time you see me!” he yelled as the hatch cycled closed.
“Well, Mark, it looks like we’re headed back to Earth,” Sarah said.
“Yes, it does,” Mark commed back as he stared unseeingly at the hatch Damus had walked through. He sighed as he stood. The Primus was right; there were preparations to be made. He didn’t think it would be an open-arm welcome. It had never been before—why should now be any different?
His emotions started to get the better of him as he remembered Tyler and Alexis. A soft smile touched his lips.
While they might be gone, Jerome, Ortiz, Dominguez, Yu, Young, Bobbie, and Moretti are still alive. He let out a heavy breath. His smile brightened a bit. He missed his brother and sister-in-law, but there was no getting them back.
Sarah cleared her throat, breaking him away from his thoughts.
“Something the matter?” Mark asked.
“I didn’t want to say this before because it would distract you,” Sarah said, as if bracing herself. “Alexis, Tyler, and you were the targets of an assassination. General Jones was the one who gave the order, but Nivad Selvra of the Ministry of Intelligence turned a blind eye to it.”
Mark’s features that had softened now completely changed. His body shook with seething rage.
“Looks like it won’t just be a simple reunion,” Mark hissed through gritted teeth.
Thank you for reading The Tenth Awakens! The Maraukian War will continue in The Vanguard Moves!
From the Author
The Tenth Awakens (Maraukian War Book 1) Page 33
