Beyond Death (Perimeter Defense Book #2)

by Michael Atamanov

  "What kind of forces does the enemy have concentrated on Veyerde?" I asked, and Savasss Jach answered thoughtfully:

  "During our time in Kej, we studied the Alien landing ship in great detail. It is intended to transport several pieces of heavy technology and up to one thousand five hundred bush-soldiers. The disk-shaped starships here in Veyerde are quite similar to the ships in Kej in many ways, though I would be quite sure that you could fit quite a bit less of the 'medusas' in there than 'bushes.' According to my calculations, the Aliens could have brought up to eight hundred thousand of their soldiers to Veyerde, and since they've arrived, it seems they've managed to dig in pretty deep."

  "Can we manage?" I asked, somewhat in doubt after the general's speech.

  "No question, Crown Prince. My soldiers are capable of capturing Veyerde. But as for how long it will take and what percentage of landing troops we will lose, that will depend directly on whether we can use your heavy ships for orbital bombardment."

  "General, you can count on the support of the star armada's firepower in full force. Show us a target, and my fleet will turn it into dust."

  It was a grimly impressive picture. The fifteen battleships and seventy heavy cruisers in my fleet managed to turn everything that presented even the slightest threat to the landing troops into mush. The three Monarch battleships were especially effective at hitting planetary targets. Bride of Chaos, the flagship of the Sector Seven fleet Knight of Light, and Ice Princess from the Damir fleet were sending out a great many thirty-ton guided missiles down their 1400 mm cannons, and every shot would remove another Alien bunker or construction from the tactical map with a twenty second delay. In most cases, we didn't even have to use our nuclear arsenal. We only had to use one thermonuclear mine and that was on the Alien command center.

  The other Tyrant battleships, the older Usurpers and the Swarm Mereshes were armed with impulse laser cannons and were working on taking down concentrations of Alien manpower and technology. The heavy cruisers also took part in the orbital bombardment, though they weren't all that effective. All seventy of my cruisers could barely equal the firepower of even one of my battleships. Finally, the moment arrived for the general to announce:

  "Crown Prince Georg, the Alien anti-space defense system has been completely destroyed. All turrets have been deactivated, as well as radar installations and communication centers. The old rule of war has been proven once again: whoever controls a planet's orbit will dominate. Everything is ready for the beginning of the assault."

  As we had earlier agreed, the order to begin liberating the planet was to be given live by Princess Astra royl Veyerde. The light technicians had already installed spotlights to help the viewers better see the Princess's face on the backdrop of the infinitely huge Tria. Then, the make-up artist finished and walked a bit away, so as not to step on stage. The unusually serious Astra, with a strong-willed and otherworldly look on her face, gave the speech composed for her by Katerina ton Mesfelle emotionally and without hesitation, before finally finishing with an order:

  "Begin the assault! Attack!!!"

  At that second, twenty thousand guided rockets ripped off at once into space toward the surface of the planetoid Veyerde through its none-too-thick atmosphere. Two hundred thousand Alpha Iseyeks, armed to the teeth, set off for the target zones marked by the reconnaissance drones. Five minutes later, a human landing party of three hundred shuttles arrived after them. People would have to liberate the Veyerde palace, which had somewhat suffered after taking a few hits from space. All that was left for us to do on the Tria was wait.

  "My Prince, I understand that it is quite a bad time right now, but I must tell you that a very large deposit just came in to your account," Bionica said suddenly.

  "Two billion credits?" Astra supposed with a smile, and it turned out she was right.

  I chuckled heartily:

  "It took Duke Paolo a pretty long time to figure out where my fleet was. I suspect that the Duke had had enough time to send quite a serious amount of money to his soldiers in the Aiwe system before figuring out that my fleet wasn't even planning on passing through Aiwe."

  Our conversation was interrupted by a message saying that the first landing modules had reached the planet's surface. A picture came up simultaneously on all monitors: Alpha Iseyeks were unloading their modules and setting up some equipment, bundling antennas and connecting cables. I wasn't even able to ask the General what was happening before the answer showed itself to me: above the landing zones, there were energy shields pouring down into dome shapes. Savasss Jach purposely selected one of the pictures and put it up on the big screen. I couldn't figure out a thing. Some kind of semi-transparent buildings, craters, burned-up trees, but all the same Astra gasped:

  "That is my father's palace! Well, to be honest, what's left of it..."

  Colonel Gor ton Vulf compared the pictures with his reconnaissance data and said:

  The craters aren't from us. Our infrared visors are showing no sign of elevated temperature in them. We are observing traces of the battle left by the last defenders of the Kingdom of Veyerde with you father at head, Princess Astra."

  "I need to go there immediately. I just have to be on Veyerde when my planet is liberated from the captors!" Astra declared dogmatically.

  I thought that the colonel would refuse the girl, but the soldier unexpectedly concurred with her:

  "I agree with you fully, Princess. A representative of the House of Veyerde really should be with the soldiers on the planet. But it's always good to make sure we aren't confusing patriotism and bravery with stupidity. I allow your shuttle to take off only after my guys and the general's assault troops have carefully checked every nook and cranny in the palace and installed a defensive shield around the whole area to keep any surprises from getting in."

  "Crown Prince Georg, tell him!" the Princess implored, trying to get my support, but I was completely on the colonel's side in this matter.

  "Astra, the terrestrial operation is being led by General Savasss Jach, and the palace assault by Colonel Gor ton Vulf. Only the two of them can decide when you can be allowed to actually land on Veyerde, and even I am in no position to influence their decision."

  I turned back to the huge globe. The number of red markers on it had gone down, but remained very, very high, despite the fact that new green markers were appearing every second. Having seen my attention on the map, the general commented:

  "The enemy isn't even trying to resist, instead retreating from the areas where our assault troops are landing. The area around the Royal Palace of Veyerde will become relatively safe forty minutes from now. In that time, the assault troops will check all constructions and underground connections, as well as widen the zone of control to a radius of eighteen miles from the palace. All the same, fully clearing the whole planet of Aliens will take twenty days at the very least. The difficult terrain and many caves and cliffs on the planet mean that there are a lot of hiding spots. Everything has to be checked. Reconnaissance drones have already discovered traces of Alien activity, even in the karst caves and under the surface of the internal ocean, so the work ahead is long and grueling."

  Twenty days?! To be honest, I was expecting much less. To be totally honest, I couldn't allow myself so much time in Sector Seven, even if it was to help my favorite. I simply wouldn't have enough time to solve the issue with the Orange House head afterwards otherwise.

  "General, it would be nice to bring down the time-frame to five or seven days if possible."

  The gigantic centipede looked at me for some time in thought, then said:

  "Crown Prince, I will not tell you that this mission is impossible. It will be difficult, but there is a way. I'll have to awaken another two hundred thousand soldiers, totally emptying the reserves of Tria, and we'll have to move in an extremely aggressive fashion. Also, losses among the assault troops and landing troops would be tens of times higher. According to my calculations, we can expect around three hundred thousand A
lpha Iseyek assault troop casualties and five thousand human ones to carry out the mission as fast as you're asking. I can find sacrifices for this situation, but only if the five-day time-frame is truly that important to your Highness."

  I shook my head in the negative.

  "No general, that is not a good option. We have no need for unjustified losses. Instead, you can use any of the star fleet's capabilities you need: destroy any target, fortification, underground Alien bunker, anything. No reason to be greedy with missiles. If we use all of them we have, we can get more delivered from neighboring star systems. If you need any land-based or atmospheric technology to carry out the mission, tell me and I will pay for it to be purchased and delivered. In five days, the Perimeter Sector Eight Fleet must be on the way back home toward Unatari. That is the cold hard truth. But I do not think it right to get landing troops killed unnecessarily to accomplish that. Decide for yourself, General, how much time you'll need for our victory to be complete. And I'll ask the Sector Seven Fleet Commander to stay here in Veyerde for as long as needed by your troops for orbital support."

  Standing change. Iseyek race opinion of you has improved.

  Alpha Iseyek race opinion of you: +17 (warm)

  Gamma Iseyek race opinion of you: +14 (warm)

  Global standing increase. Current value -12

  Standing change. Empire Military faction opinion of you has improved.

  Empire Military faction opinion of you: +25 (respectful)

  The only member of the Imperial Military Faction who had heard the conversation was Colonel Gor ton Vulf, so the standing change messages could only have been his doing. Interesting. I had long suspected that the colonel was able to affect faction standing... I'll have to test this observation and give my subject the ability to reveal himself at the same time.

  "Colonel Gor ton Vulf, I have made the decision to land on the planet. Though Astra is the heir to Veyerde, she is above all else a fragile girl, and it wouldn't be right to send her to the front, while myself remaining in safety. Also, we'll be able to make a pretty sweet report from the just-now-cleared Palace of Veyerde for the whole Empire to see. This is the first planet ever liberated from Aliens. But I think that the historic speech should be made by a staff soldier, who really knows about land battles. Are you prepared to take that role on, colonel?"

  Gor ton Vulf removed his helmet and thoughtfully combed his graying mane.

  "Crown Prince... I would love to give a glorious speech on camera for my descendants... But given my speech impediment, I'm afraid that it would have the opposite of the desired effect."

  "No worries, colonel, you and I can go together and compose a text for a speech so fiery, that people will be applauding your victory in every corner of the empire," Katerina ton Mesfelle promised.

  "Then there's another issue," the huge, muscle-bound soldier sighed. "I've never been good at public speaking. It's easier for me to fight in five serious battles than to say something meaningful to a camera once. The second wave of landing shuttles will be sent to Veyerde in ten minutes. I'll reserve spots for everybody then."

  * * *

  And again, I didn't know how to feel about what was happening in the world around me. If landing on a planet captured in battle was part of a game scenario, the developers of Perimeter Defense truly deserved heaps of praise and awards. The landing process was just that realistic and atmospheric for a player to experience. But if this "virtual world" was actually reality... it was scary to even think about, given the landing was so rough that those responsible had earned at least the very harshest possible tongue-lashing.

  It started with the fact that the landing in combat conditions brought me right back that time on the Throne World, but the main difference from that time was that I didn't have a space suit on now, so I had to hold back the urge to vomit back with all my might. We descended through the atmosphere of Veyerde in a buzzing, crackling, ball of fire. The turbulence was so strong that I could barely keep my neck from dislocating, and my teeth rattled so hard I accidentally bit my tongue. When then I wondered about the reason we were making such a risky descent and why the pilot of our landing shuttle was screaming in alarm, the silent officer sitting next to me simply advised me to look out the window. I wish I hadn't...

  It would seem that we were being shot at by two little horseshoe-shaped fighter planes of a design I was unfamiliar with. Methodically, one after the next, they were shooting down our landing shuttles. Then another shuttle blew up in a bright flash, and the fighter started curving back toward us. You couldn't say we weren't trying to take the Aliens down. The sky around the fighter was dotted with the blooms of nearby explosions, but our AA defense just couldn't hit the fast little ship. I noticed tracer lines stretching out from the shuttles landing together with us leading to the attacking fighter. I wondered how they were shooting. I turned my head and took a long around our landing shuttle. Both sides, it turned out, had two gunner's turrets folded into them to ease passenger transport.

  "Man the guns!" I screamed, before setting an example.

  I don't know how, but even with the unmerciful turbulence, I made it to the nearest turret. The officer prayed, then helped me pull the chair out and strap in with special belts. My fingers had barely made contact with the cozy, anatomical grips, when a screen and target grid appeared before my eyes. To test it out, I pressed the buttons with both hands. A smoke trail going away from us was reflected on screen. The cannon noticeably began to shake. I figured that meant it wasn't a laser, but something like a double cannon on a war plane. Though the rounds traveled at high speed, you had to be able to predict to hit the fast targets. And just then, an Alien fighter appeared on the screen, flying away. I gave it time to turn around, placing the center of my targeting grid where I supposed the returning enemy would soon be. A long line, and the cannons gave another strong vibration. A tracer stretched out toward the Alien fighter, and intersected with its flight trajectory. I clearly saw a few flashes of an energy shield around the flying Alien device, then explosions on the fighter's left wing. The flying horseshoe turned away sharply to the side, then went past the edge of the screen.

  "Target hit! Strike!" My joy knew no bounds.

  "I affirm that the target has been shot down and has stopped attacking," Colonel Gor ton Vulf said, sitting at the second turret on my side of the ship. "It's time to meet your maker, you virulent pest!"

  But it didn't really matter anymore. Our ship dipped into a thick cloud, then a few seconds later our landing thrusters kicked in, bringing our speed down. A minute later, the shuttle landed fairly roughly, causing the shocks to creak. The doors opened immediately.

  "Exit the ship! No delays! Let's unload all the boxes with us! Free up the shuttle for the next groups!" the mustached major standing outside in a heavy armored suit with helmet visor thrown up was gesticulating wildly, hurrying the landing troops along.

  On seeing Gor ton Vulf, the major played his trump card, reporting:

  "Commander, we have secured a base in the Palace. No living Aliens remain. The defensive shield is being put up now. Two engineering groups have gone to check the road to the lake..."

  The rest of the report was drowned out by the automatic AA turrets next to the landing pad. They made a synchronized turn and let fly some long lines upward with a thunderous clap.

  "The pair of Alien fighters was able to take off from a cannon installation that our reconnaissance didn't notice. Now they're harassing our landing zone," the major said.

  The colonel spit through his teeth in vexation.

  "We already know. They attacked our group in descent. Eleven of thirty shuttles were shot down, the monsters. The Crown Prince himself took one down from the side turret. That's when they retreated..."

  It was only then that the major noticed the others who had arrived with the colonel, both people and nonpeople. The soldier's eyes widened. He bowed down on one knee and lowered his head:

  "My Prince, please forgive me. I didn't
recognize you! Do you order me to take me to the operations headquarters to give your Highness control over the soldiers?"

  "No, I don't care about the headquarters. Professionals should be in charge. I don't understand a damn thing in land battles and would only get in your way here. So then, stand, major and continue your work as if I wasn't even here."

  "As you command, Crown Prince!" the soldier stood and really did go to the side, leaving Astra and I alone with our bodyguard companions.

  * * *

  That was the weirdest night of my life. First we spent a long time exploring the palace ruins with flashlights. We even crawled around in the half-filled basements, all the while with Astra telling me about each room, each burnt-up picture frame on the wall, and each collapsed staircase and tower. Katerina was writing everything down, constantly clarifying this or that detail and filming as she went.

  Afterwards, when it was totally dark out, the Princess dragged us both out on a mountain path that wound around between the stones. We went out to the small lake with a ten-foot-high waterfall cascading into it. With absolutely no regard for the others present, Astra threw off her clothes and immersed herself in the black water.

  "Whoa! This water is ice cold!" the girl told us, her teeth chattering as she went deeper and deeper in.

  Suddenly, Astra dived underwater. I had to hold back my bodyguards, who ran out in front to help her. The girl really did not need any help. In fifteen seconds, Astra had already resurfaced and was on her way to the bank, holding a golden crown inlaid with rubies.