He nailed one in the chest and his friends scattered like pool balls, clinging to any cover they could find. That’s better. At least you’re taking us seriously. Zhamisce let off a few bursts to keep their heads down and fell back. From what little he could see the line was holding fine. None of the Enemy spearheads had broken through and gotten behind them. He caught glimpses of his troopers holding their own to his left and right. They can make it without me. I need to check on the others.
By the time he reached the south the battle was already over. The marines were checking their gear and checking on each other, the sound of guns quiet and distant.
“Everyone all right?” he called out. There was a lance corporal with their helmet on cradling Corporal Yimran, his problem child, and he feared the worst. “How is she?”
“Burns on her back,” the lance replied. “Either they hit her jump jets or too much dust made them explode.”
“There’s an autosurgeon at HQ. Take her there and get back as quick as you can. They could attack again at any time.”
“Yes, sir!” And he vaulted forward at top speed before deaccelerating to about five meters a second, conscious of Yimran’s body.
He hoped she’d be okay. Corporal Yimran caused more trouble than the rest of her platoon combined, but that somehow endeared her to him more.
The south had done well, all told. He was just about to check the east when Ogun raised him.
“The attack has let up for now, Sir. All flanks report quiet.”
It was true. The fire from above had stopped without his noticing, and the dust was beginning to clear. Was that it?
***
The second night was easier. Wen woke feeling refreshed and drank down an amino acid solution taken from her field rations. It was designed to work fast. She could already feel herself recovering and adapting to Harbin’s heat and higher gravity. Her pace was somewhat quicker than yesterday; it had to be.
Shielded from the sun, and with a special filter at the entrance to keep out dust and animals but let in the breeze, she had a pleasantly cool and restful day of sleep. Too pleasant, as it turned out. She’d slept sixteen hours uninterrupted. Her alarm couldn’t wake her. It’d been ringing a while unnoticed. When her eyes fluttered open it was already dark; she was supposed to be out and moving hours ago.
That wasn’t good, not at all. If she didn’t make it to her planned shelter by daybreak the heat could kill her. So there she was, counting on her long Ren legs to carry her forward.
It wasn’t so bad; she was alone now, with the only indication of the outside world distant cracks like thunder, followed by slight tremors in the earth. There was no lightning that she could see, though. Was it some sort of geological phenomenon unique to Harbin? Or was it that orbital bombardment those marines had mentioned? She didn’t like the latter possibility. If the Enemy was shooting up the planet they were shooting at something, someone. Her ship.
None of it made sense. What were they doing? Why hadn’t they escaped? Perhaps the Void Dragon was too damaged to get away. But if that was the case, why so many shots? A paralyzed ship on the ground should’ve been easy work.
Wen’s legs were burning. It was all uphill here and her worries were pushing her. She mixed up another amino drink and drained it in one go. The burning subsided a few minutes later and she felt another burst of energy. It was dangerous to do that too many times close together, for a variety of reasons, but Wen would worry about that later.
Her pace was such that she arrived at her planned campsite, a lonely escarpment surrounded by scrub, ahead of schedule, despite departing late. That would have been fine, except she wasn’t alone.
The land leading up to the escarpment was flat, and she could see well ahead. There were shelters, lights, small silhouettes of movement, lots of them. Wen was so focused on trying to make out whether they were Mei or Enemy that she didn’t notice someone sneaking up on her.
“Hey!”
Lightning went down Wen’s spine and her flechette gun was pointed at the source of the noise before she was consciously aware of doing it.
“Woah, hold your fire! I’m friendly.”
Wen stood stock still for a moment, and then another, before her tightly wound muscles relaxed a bit and her brain caught up with her training and instincts.
“Marines? Xuanwu?” she asked finally.
“What’s left of us,” the Mei said. She was in a bit better state that Malic’s group that Wen ran into yesterday, but not by much, with a shower and clean clothes the marine might have even passed for Bruzio’s younger sister, same brown skin and frizzy hair.
“PFC Yarman is the name. I’m on sentry duty.”
“Still maintaining military discipline?” Wen asked bitterly.
Yarman shrank from her gaze. “As much as we can. Lieutenant Logenhayn says we’re to continue guerrilla resistance until relieved. Kind of hard since most of our equipment is in bad shape.”
Wen perked up. This was just the type of group she was hoping to run into. “Don’t worry about it, trooper. I was suspicious since I ran into some deserters yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Down south,” Wen replied.
Yarman nodded her head. “I’m not surprised. Pretty much everybody who still wants to fight is here. The problem is most of the officers died in the mountain. General Cotto...”
She looked so sad. Wen almost regret pressing her for more. “General Cotto?”
“When the Mountain started taking fire Cotto immediately realized what they were doing and ordered as many people as possible to escape and evade. He...he...led the last stand himself. He wanted to bring the Mountain down around him but Montjoie was there, so he just held out in the lower levels as long as he could. It gave us time to escape.”
This is getting better and better. “Montjoie? It Montjoie alive?”
“We think so. The Lieutenant knows more.”
Jackpot. “Take me to him,” Wen ordered.
“Okay.” Yarman led Wen toward the camp for a bit before she stopped and turned. “Wait. Who are you? What’s a Ren doing on this planet? How did you even get here with the blockade and fall of the gateway?”
“Captain Wen, GSS Void Dragon, and I’m here to rescue you.”
Yarman’s eyes widened. “Rescue...us?” she said in a small voice.
Well, mostly Montjoie. “That’s right. We’ve got a ship that can get through the blockade. I need to coordinate with Lieutenant Logenhayn right away.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Yarman rushed ahead and Wen followed after her.
The camp came alive at their approach. Wen saw suspicious eyes scanning them and nervous fingering of shadowy weapons at dozens of campfires. They risked open fires? I guess they don’t think the Enemy will pursue them here.
“We’ve got to talk to the Lieutenant!” Yarman called out.
Wen immediately knew who he was before being introduced. Lieutenant Logenhayn looked to be cut from Zhamisce’s cloth, a New Mei from a wealthy family, taller than his fellows, and of all the strange things, natural red hair. Some genetic quirk from the old home world, Wen supposed. Mei were like that.
Strange then, that when they got close he looked more like a boy than a man to Wen. His skin was youthful with freckles and splotches and his body gave an impression of not quite filled out yet. His eyes especially were young, bright and wide but making strong eye contact like he was trying to look more experienced than he was.
“What’s all this, private?” he asked.
Young voice too, Wen thought.
“Lieutenant, this is Captain Wen. She’s got a ship; she’s here to rescue us!”
He stood there and eyed her. “I see. You can go back to picket duty, Private Yarman. Captain Wen and I need to talk.”
Wen half-expected a petulant request to stay, but Yarman saluted and hustled back to her post. The boy commands respect.
“Let’s get to my shelter, there’s a lot you need to know,” he said.
They walked along for a bit, and Wen noticed that Yarman was probably one of the better equipped marines here. What happened to their equipment?
“This way, please.” He indicated a sealed room cut out of the escarpment, much nicer than Wen’s makeshift sleeping place yesterday. There was even some improvised furniture. “Have a seat, Captain.”
It wasn’t the most comfortable chair for Ren dimensions (far too low) but Wen wasn’t about to complain. She needed these people.
He sighed. “I don’t know if it’s obvious or not, but I’m in over my head here. Would you believe I was only commissioned a few months ago?”
She would believe, but didn’t need to tell Logenhayn that. “You’ve taken heavy casualties. What happened to the other officers?” she asked.
“Harbin’s rough on them, especially junior ones. They told me all about it when I got here. The KIA rate for fresh lieutenants is about fifty percent after six months. Considering we’ve been here for years, well, the odds aren’t good. Replacement are slow too. The reinforcement jumps from the gateway at the center of the Mountain were mostly grunts. We’re expendable, Captain. It was particularly bad this time, though.”
“Why?”
“HQ was more or less wiped out. General Cotto was seriously wounded in the first attack, and his staff had it worse. They knew just where to strike,” he said bitterly.
“Tell me what happened, exactly,” Wen said.
Logenhayn reached across a table and flicked on an air purifier, then lit a cigarette. “Not much to tell. I thought you spaceside types would have a better idea. Cotto only had a hasty theory, and I only heard it because I was his aide.”
“I need to hear it, Lieutenant. Our ship brought us in under the blockade and we didn’t get a good look.”
“Aye aye.” He took a drag. “It all started when we detected several troop transports in orbit. Initially, we thought that meant another attempt to dig us out the usual way. We’d been harassing their infrastructure up in the polar region and I guess we provoked a response.
“Under normal circumstances, those big transports are just shift-capable space ferries. As soon as they came out of their jump we expected them to make for the space elevator at the north pole and unload. They didn’t.”
Strange. “And what then?”
“We detected multiple objects, larger than interceptors but smaller than landing craft. Shortly afterward the mountain shook like hell and our sensors cut out. One funny thing about them is they looked a bit like dreadnoughts, just scaled down. I saw the scans myself.”
So the Enemy did have the same idea. That was bad, real bad.
“I think General Cotto called them gunboats,” he added. “They bombarded the hell out of us from beyond flak range, and the dust storms they kicked up blinded our defense grid. People were dead...dying everywhere. General Cotto...he ordered me to take whomever I could and escape to fight another day. But does this look like fighting to you? Half my troopers are out of ammo and zero, that’s right, zero have functional jump jets! We’ve just been running, running for days! And I don’t know what to do!”
The kid’s voice cracked. Wen didn’t want to push him too far. She had to be delicate here. Keep him on something tangible, she thought.
“I know it’s been difficult, Lieutenant, but I need to know. How did you lose it all? What happened to your equipment?”
Logenhayn finished his cigarette. “Harbin eats equipment like it eats officers and everything else. All our production facilities were centralized, and they’re gone. Without regular maintenance and replacement parts equipment can wear out in a few days of heavy use out here. That was my last cigarette by the way.”
Not good. “And Montjoie?” Mustn't forget him.
“Crazy old man, always talking to himself in that insane throat language the Enemy uses. Yes, if you’re wondering, he figured it out. It was hell capturing one alive, by the way. Once the Enemy figured out what we were doing they pretty much launched an all-out suicide attack for three days straight. That was my first time in a real fight. Did you know the Enemy is all female? They’re sort of like reverse ants, only one male per planet.”
Interesting as that was it wasn’t really relevant to her objectives. “But is he alive?”
“If they haven’t killed him, yes. Can you believe he wanted to be captured? He’s interested in the Enemy, thinks they’re fascinating. It was all he and General Cotto ever talked about, and they talked about it every free moment. Kui’tang this and Kui’tang that.”
“Kui’tang?”
“The Enemy’s word for themselves, or as close as a we can pronounce it. They’ve got extra muscles in their throat you see, like cats! They use them to produce all kinds of sub-vocal noises as a part of their language! Isn’t that fascinating!”
Wen just let him talk until he talked himself out. They couldn’t move until dusk tomorrow, so she had time.
“Are you done?” she asked after a while.
He sighed. “Yes. Sorry, Captain. It’s just the stress of everything and...I really wish I had another cigarette.”
“There might be some in my ration pack, hold on.” She rummaged through and sure enough, a pack of military cigarettes.
“Here you go.” She tossed them to him.
He caught the pack with lightning quick reflexes, tore open the packaging, lit one up in trembling fingers and took a greedy drag. “Oh, Captain, you’re a lifesaver.”
He leaned back and relaxed for a moment. “So, what’s the plan?”
“That depends on you. How many marines are here?”
“Of effectives, approximately a company and a half, and that’s being generous, after all, a marine without jump jets can barely move in a real, fluid battlefield. With all hands, battalion strength.”
“That’s...not horrible. I’ve got a full ammo spool in my flechette gun. If we spliced and divided that, do you suppose we could at least bring everyone up to status of ‘warm body pulling a trigger’?”
He whistled. “Full, you say? If we divided it up with what we have I think that would come out to a few minutes of continuous fire per marine. We’ll have to be careful with it, but that’s fine.”
Logenhayn worked it out on his datapad while the cigarette between his lips burned down. “Yep, roughly two minutes of continuous fire per head. We can work with that. Did you know ancient soldiers carried even less?”
He sure bounces around. “I don’t think I’ve ever read that book, Lieutenant. It’s strange. You’ve got a datapad and an air purifier but not enough ammo?”
His eyes got a far away look. “We had to shoot our way out, and they nipped at our heels for a while. Perhaps I let them get a little overzealous with the covering fire as we escaped. It wasn’t the most organized withdrawal and we could only really take whatever was at hand. I did my best.”
Wen put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, plenty of things have gone wrong with my first command. I shouldn’t even be here for one.”
“What do you mean?”
How do I put this? “When we came in under their flak we got made right away. Enemy interceptors were right on us and I had to leave the first officer in charge while I drove them off. My fighter went down two night’s journey south of here. I guess it’s lucky though, since I ran into you.”
“I guess so. What about your ship?”
Wen handed him her datapad.
“This is Marine Corps issue,” he said. “You’re Navy, though. How’d that happen?”
She smirked a little. “My own quick escape. It’s got a list of LZ’s where we would land and send out search parties. It’s extra lucky since you are just outside the planned radius. We might never have run into you.”
Logenhayn made a face. “That’s funny, there’s been something going on around this one for at least a day.”
What? “Where?” Wen asked with deep concern.
He flipped the datapad around. “That one, looks like your
main LZ. We’re still pretty far out, but over the escarpment it’s nothing but plains so we can make out some things. There’s been multiple strikes from their orbital artillery followed by what looked like firefights, but the dust obscured most of it. I thought it was our people. I had hoped more of us made it out.”
Wen stood up. “We have to go there!”
“I’d love to, Captain, but it’s daylight now and the planet’s heating up. We’d melt. The climate control on most of our suits has failed and some of us don’t even have suits.”
“You don’t think we can push through it?”
“Not in the state we’re in. We need time to splice the ammo and sort out what is and isn’t worth taking. When dusk falls, we march hard, I promise. Your ship’s our only hope at this point.”
Wen didn’t like it, not one bit, but saw the sense in his words. They’d have to march all night and fight at the end of it. They’d be no good to the Void Dragon dropping off one by one in the dust and sun.
“Okay. We march at dusk. That’s not all you need to know, though.”
Logenhayn only raised an eyebrow.
“This mission doesn’t end with you. We need to make at least one decent attempt to rescue Montjoie now that you tell me he could be alive. It’s imperative.”
A bitter look crossed Logenhayn’s face for a moment before he schooled his features and nodded. “I figured it’d be something like that. That crazy old man has friends in high places. I just hope he hasn’t volunteered to visit the Enemy home world before we show up.”
“I know you have limited information, Lieutenant, but do you think he’s been moved?”
“I doubt it. The hump from the polar region to the Mountain is a pain and a half. We haven’t observed them in the air, either. They’d been building up their strength in the mountains for weeks. My opinion: they were planning to stay for a while, maybe try to figure out the gateway. I bet that’s Montjoie’s game to be honest. He’ll feed them breadcrumbs about it to stall them. Maybe he knows somebody like you is coming.”
Void Dragon Page 16
