Void Dragon

by William Kephart

  The Navy people under her direct command were all aboard ship. It hurt to leave Nima in charge for a minute more but she had to be the one to fly this mission.

  She’d spent the last half hour briefing Ensign Li, her wingwoman for this sortie. A junior officer from Astrogation working under Nima, Wen knew her face but not her name. Coincidentally, she happened to be the best pilot in her year at the Academy and expendable enough for Nima to spare her.

  The plan was a simple one. They’d come in at a steep dive just short of the Enemy flak belt to the north and release their shells in the loosest, sandiest plains they could find on a map. From there it was a race to orbit and the Enemy gunboats. Ensign Li seemed attentive enough but Wen was worried she’d be another type that was overly dependent on instruments. They’d be flying blind through one hell of a dust storm.

  She opened a channel. “Okay, Ensign, it’s follow the leader. We’ve got a storm scheduled and I hate to be late.”

  “Roger that,” Li replied.

  Girl sounds nervous. Probably never thought she’d fly an interceptor in combat. Heh, neither did I at her age.

  They climbed high and fast. Wen unfurled one set of wings, and then her second set as she gained speed. The hypersonic boom breakers made everything feel so so smooth once they hit high machs. Acceleration took a little while since she was carrying serious weight. Lieutenant Tian actually had to recalibrate the engines to be able to carry Void Dragon sized shells.

  “That’s high enough, we’ll loop around and start our dive in one minute. Just follow me and you’ll be fine, Ensign,” Wen relayed. “Remember, we’re not really all that high, and at the speeds we’re about to hit the ground will sneak up fast. Once we drop the bombs pull up as hard as you can.”

  “Roger.”

  Okay, she doesn’t want to talk. That suited her fine. It was early morning and Wen had been up all night, again. She hoped this would be the last one for a while.

  Her console beeped and she steeled herself. “That’s the cynosure beacon. Lock on to the laser and follow me!”

  Lieutenant Logenhayn was going to guide them in using a fairly ancient method that Tian had rigged up, a handheld laser that he was physically pointing at the target. They were striking a valley between two mountains that had a good wind corridor for the dust storm to spread out through. If they were fortunate it would cover his people all the way to the Mountain Stronghold. He’d arrived ahead of schedule, which was cheering to Wen. She was afraid they’d meet resistance before they even reached that point.

  Down, down they went, splitting the sky with sharp thunder.

  Not yet, not yet. They needed to strike this point and no other. The mountain range would snuff out their storm too soon, otherwise.

  Wen checked on her wing through her peripheral vision. “On my mark, Ensign. Hold. Hold. Bombs away!”

  She released the latch on her bomb rig and pulled up for all she was worth. Ensign Li did the same.

  It was a perfect hit. Their bombs struck at just about the same time and a great pillar of brown and red erupted into daylight, nearly reaching her on her way out.

  “Great shot, Ensign! Now, let’s get out of here.”

  The lack of a reply went unnoticed for a good minute before Wen realized what was wrong. Wait, where is she?

  Wen checked her instruments. Well clear of the dust storm and climbing through the upper atmosphere her instruments should have been able to track her wing. She just wasn’t there.

  Damnit! She slammed a fist into the dash. I told her to pull up!

  She sighed. Nothing for it now. Guess it’s up to me, again.

  Wen extended her shield prongs and prepped her turbines for escape velocity. The gunboats had no close escorts but there was no reason to take any chances.

  A transparent diamond of massive light flickered into existence and encased her interceptor, discoloring for a split second when she burst through the final layer of atmosphere. At least I’m not too heavy this time.

  The gunboats maintained a pretty high orbit so she was still a ways off. Wen let her guns spin without firing, a nervous habit she’d had since her Academy days.

  The last modification Lieutenant Tian had made was the soft fragmentation shells currently sitting in her magazine. There was no need to destroy the gunboats as such, merely disable them long enough for the Void Dragon to shift out unmolested. The special ammo was designed to rattle around inside rather than pierce through.

  As advertised, the Enemy gunboats looked a lot like dreadnoughts or even her own Void Dragon, just scaled down to twenty or thirty meters long.

  Wen gained on them easily and banked in for her first attack run. Here goes.

  She let off a burst of fire and pulled up for another pass just as soon as it was over. On her way back she got a nice visual confirmation and wanted to thank her lucky stars. The Enemy gunboat’s main gun was completely mangled!

  There were a few hard shells mixed in to tear holes in the Enemy’s shield and armor but it looked like she didn’t need them. Those ships probably didn’t even have shields! This was going to be easy.

  The gunboats scattered in all directions but not nearly fast enough to get away from her. She chewed through them effortlessly, weaving unopposed from one to the other. Just to be sure she hit each ship from multiple angles, and one actually blew up! Too easy. Seems the new Enemy ships are half-baked prototypes and missing features.

  Wen considered taunting them a bit more but thought better of it. The gap in the flak belt wouldn’t last and she needed to start heading back, or be trapped up here long enough for something nasty to catch up with her.

  She detonated her shield in a great massive light burst, something that would be easily visible from the surface and the signal to the Void Dragon that it was safe to move.

  It was a lucky thing, too, because that burst of light-noise was probably what threw off the Enemy plasma flak that exploded well wide of her a moment later.

  I thought the marines were supposed to deal with that. Do I have to do everything?

  Despite the poor Enemy gunnery, Wen thought it wise to take evasive action just the same. She flew in wild corkscrews before doubling back and doing it again in another direction. She raised her shields again as a precaution.

  Clouds of purple fire dogged her wherever she went, but Wen noticed it was spotty and irregular. Well, perhaps I’ll have to give them some credit after all.

  The flak tapered off to almost nothing as she made for the equator and prepared for reentry. Until that was accomplished she was hesitant to cut her shields, after all, after so many misses they might get lucky.

  Harbin doesn’t look so bad from up here, she thought. It really didn’t. High morning was ablaze with reds and browns and oranges, and with not a speck of dust to irritate the eye or go somewhere it wasn’t wanted.

  Dow she went, her shield burning brightly as she passed through the atmosphere once again. She was about due at their rendezvous point. The Void Dragon would be waiting at a small mountain that Logenhayn’s marines were supposed to have fortified on their way to the big Mountain. A company and what remained of their own plasma flak would be left behind to hold it while they pushed deeper into Enemy territory.

  From there it would be a simple matter of waiting for them to return, and then shifting out. Wen hoped it would be so easy. She doubted it, but still hoped.

  Nothing unpleasant seemed to notice her as she descended and skimmed the surface of the planet. The dust storm she kicked up earlier hadn’t fully died down, either. Cautious of Ensign Li’s fate, she let herself climb a little, eyes peeled for visual confirmation of the rendezvous point.

  ***

  “I want that battery silenced, sergeant, and I want it done now!”

  Lieutenant Logenhayn was leading his unit over mountains and valleys, hills and ridges, running up sheer surfaces and sliding down the other side as his jump jets carried him over obstacles as if they weren’t there at all. The d
ust was clearing and everything depended on their interceptors. Only they could open the way for the Void Dragon, the miracle ship, and their only ticket off-world.

  “You sure you want to divide our forces in this low visibility?” the sergeant asked, Logenhayn thought his name was Toro, as insubordinate and second-guessing of an NCO as he had ever had the misfortune to meet.

  “Yes I’m sure. We’re all going north. Take your squad and take them out. I’ll see you at the big Mountain we’re all heading for, and try not to get lost.”

  Okay, perhaps that was too much. It’d been a while since his last cigarette. Smoking with the visor down was ill advised, and so was raising it in a combat situation. So there he was, being sarcastic to subordinates and trying to command a battalion when he’d barely commanded a platoon before.

  Just a little longer.

  Wen had been right. The Enemy was weak in the north, and they broke out of their encirclement almost effortlessly. From there it was a simple matter of overrunning light resistance on the way to the mountain range.

  The mountains themselves were their ally, covering them, cloaking them, and funneling the Enemy into a few points that were easy to crush or bypass now that they had functional suits again.

  Numbers were on their side for once as they covered ground that only days ago they’d been fleeing across. Every so often one of his marines set off a small charge in some dusty ground to feed the storm. Even the wind was with them, blowing and churning their mobile cover in all directions. This was a Mei planet, and the Enemy wasn’t welcome here!

  There.

  “That’s Xiaoshan,” he pointed. “Second company under Captain Ogun is to dig in there and prepare a landing zone for the Void Dragon.”

  It was funny giving a captain orders, but there they were. Ogun wasn’t Xuanwu and Xuanwu followed him now. I wonder if this was what General Cotto felt like.

  The little mountain of Xiaoshan was to be their last redoubt on Harbin. It was an odd feeling. Some of Xuanwu had called Harbin a home for years, bleeding and dying to hold on to their little piece of it. Logenhayn couldn’t wait to leave. He hoped Montjoie still lived so they could get the hell out of here.

  Second company peeled off and began their work. The battalion continued rushing onward, with not an Enemy to check their progress.

  “Don’t think there’s nobody there just because you can’t see them.” Colonel Xia had sidled up next to him.

  Creepy Ren. He liked Captain Wen much better.

  “I don’t,” Logenhayn said, vaulting over a ditch and up a hill.

  Her job was to seize Montjoie, if he lived. “When you launched your raid, how many?”

  “Division strength, at least,” Xia replied.

  He cringed a little inside. Please let them all be down south.

  “Don’t be too worried. You only need to hold them off for a little while.”

  How can she read my expression with my visor down? Can all senior officers do that?

  “We must strike fast and hard,” she continued. “There are plenty of places in and out. All we need is local superiority. The gateway at the heart of the Mountain is as good a focal point as any. Hit them hard there, and I will be able to slip through easily enough.”

  The gateway was an open, hollow chamber designed to receive incoming greenshifts of supplies and personnel. He didn’t exactly like the idea of fighting there, where it was big enough to lack cover and small enough to lack room to maneuver.

  “And there should be plenty of rubble, unless they’ve already cleared it,” she added helpfully.

  Thank goodness for small mercies.

  The Mountain Stronghold was visible in the distance, still majestic, beaten and battered though it was. Impregnable fortress, or so they had all thought. To Logenhayn his escape seemed a lifetime ago. The chaos, the flickering lights, and above all the godawful shaking every time the Enemy fired from above, all now just faint pictures in his mind’s eye. Now he was leading an attack on the impregnable fortress.

  There was little enough to cover their approach, though situated in the middle of a vast range the Mountain stood alone, surrounded by deep valleys cut by rivers long run dry. The dust storm had mostly abated, and that he didn’t approve of one bit.

  “Engineers!” he called.

  A squad materialized at his side.

  “Set charges on our path to the Mountain. We’ll cover you. Everyone, get a good fix on the Mountain. We’re going in under dust cover. Suppressing fire!”

  Hundreds of flechette guns opened up at once. At first it didn’t sound like much more than a dull buzz, as a swarm of insects in the evening, and then came the echoes.

  The echoing reports of thousands of flechettes a second striking the Mountain shook the whole valley, and it stunned Logenhayn. He’d been in bigger battles than this. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but there it was.

  If the Enemy was manning defenses around the Mountain their heads were down for sure.

  “Fire in the hole!” shouted an engineer.

  A chain of explosions cascaded up and down the valley, near deafening them all and blinding them with dust.

  “Forward!”

  The glided over the ground with little short jumps, like skiing over a flat surface, and before anyone had time to think they were scaling the Mountain itself.

  “To the gateway! Stay together!”

  There were little firing positions dug out of the Mountain, which Enemy squads used as earthen bunkers. Logenhayn passed one by chance, chipped away at it with a burst of flechettes, and tossed a grenade through the firing slit. He didn’t stick around long enough to watch it explode. They kept pushing forward, bypassing what defenses they could and only destroying targets of opportunity, for their target was the big breach further up, breaches, really.

  The orbital bombardment that had lost them the Mountain had opened up wicked wounds for them to pour through. There was no time for anything else.

  “Keep moving! Don’t stop for anything!”

  The rational part of his brain knew it was pointless to call out further orders. Almost nobody would hear them. Still, it felt good.

  He couldn’t believe his luck when he reached the breach and found it had already been forced. His marines were flooding the area and from the bodies it looked like the Enemy had been barely defending it.

  Arrogant bastards.

  He made a hand signal for everyone to form up and all present fell in behind him. They’d made it up and now it was time to go down.

  Logenhayn remembered a large elevator shaft as the main vertical artery running through the Mountain, and as luck would have it they were pretty close. He wouldn’t trust the elevator itself in combat, but with their jump jets to slow descent they wouldn’t have to.

  Their first real resistance was an Enemy command post at the entrance to the shaft.

  “Real resistance” turned out to be token at best as the Enemy on guard were out of uniform and only one of them even bothered to return fire. Their remains were splattered all over the hallways in short order.

  Logenhayn spared them a glance on his way past. Weird, almost like hairless cats. He’d seen pictures, but never like this. They didn’t look that alien, and were visibly female, just like Montjoie said.

  “Somebody call an elevator?” Sergeant Toro asked. A few laughed.

  “No elevator for us today, marine, looks like the Enemy hasn’t bothered to fix anything they broke,” Logenhayn said. “Okay everyone, the gateway is at the very bottom. I want everybody down there swift but safe, remember vertical downwards isn’t as easy as vertical upwards. Expect a welcoming committee at the bottom!”

  Logenhayn went over first. Forward facing jump jets at his suit’s belt line fired to keep him upright and he began to walk along the wall of the shaft, straight down. There was a trick to it with shifting your weight slightly every time the jets fired. He noticed a few slips and stumbles but nobody outright lost control, for which he was thankfu
l.

  Bigger than I remembered, he thought. If anything, the Mountain looked bigger on the inside than out, especially the hollowed out parts.

  Though it took longer than he liked, and there were a few stragglers still climbing down, almost the whole battalion had made it to the ruined base of the shaft. Colonel Xia’a handiwork was obvious, with half-cleared rubble everywhere. Logenhayn was somewhat worried about the structural integrity if he was honest. They’d be putting a lot of stress on everything real soon.

  Speaking of which, where was the Enemy? Surely, they would defend the gateway they were so interested in. They were nearly at the heart of the Mountain. It was concerning.

  He signaled for noise discipline and everyone shut up. They crept along, almost to the very threshold of the gateway, when they heard it.

  It was an awful sound, like a tiger purring and trying to speak Nihindi at the same time, but somehow worse. It was their language, no mistake about that. He made just one more hand signal.

  Attack!

  The battalion surged forward, firing at anything that moved. If anything, the echoes here were worse than outside the mountain. The gateway was a huge hollow chamber, with apparently perfect acoustics. Logenhayn took a chance and turned on the sound dampeners on his helmet. He’d burst his ear drums if he didn’t.

  Inside was more Enemy than he had ever seen in one place, but they were being driven back by his marine’s withering fire. Logenhayn noticed Xia and her Ren unit blow past him, off to look for Montjoie.

  Hand signals were about all he could use since he noticed troopers all around switching on their sound dampeners.

  Engineers.

  He was to hold here until Xia returned. Montjoie was their main objective, but whether they found him or not, they still intended to leave nothing here for the Enemy to study.