The base was ruined, taken from what it had been and reduced to molten alloy amongst craters of magma. Two of the towers remained upright, though they looked as if they might fall at any moment. The final tower had fallen away from the base, while the central pyramid had taken on a new, indefinable shape.
Something else caught his eye – a shape dropping through the air above at great speed. He knew what it was. “Stay down!” he said.
A few hundred metres above, the tank’s gravity engines braked sharply, arresting the vehicle’s fall. Some of the soldiers scrambled away, though most knew there was no need to try. The landing was perfect and the tank dropped dead-centre on the roof, where it remained in a stationary hover a metre above the alloy surface.
There were a few soldiers underneath. They rolled out, completely unharmed, having seen enough deployments of armour in the past to know the tank would have plenty room for them as long as they lay flat.
“In we go, ladies and gentlemen!” Duggan said. “What are you waiting for?”
This was one of the Space Corps’ mid-sized tanks which they’d evidently managed to squeeze into the Crimson’s adapted cargo bay. The vehicle had thick armour and a powerful gravity engine to complement its large-bore gun and twin plasma launchers.
Duggan got himself inside, along with the others. It was as cramped as he’d feared, with room for only twelve in adequate comfort. His suit informed him there were twenty-eight inside - they’d lost four in the fighting.
“Who’s driving this thing?” he asked, prioritising the living over the dead.
“That’ll be me, sir,” said Kidd.
“Have you got a direction?”
“Yes, sir. The Crimson’s programmed one in for us.”
“Good – follow it at once.”
“Already on it.”
The tank moved off, remaining horizontal as it plunged down the side of the building. It couldn’t climb vertically, but it could drop safely. Duggan experienced the sensation of a rapidly-plummeting lift. The gravity engines hummed and they were on their way.
“I need a casualty report confirmation,” he said. “I’ve got Stanton, Reilly, Rastol and Fuentes.”
“That tallies with mine, sir,” said Ortiz.
“We’ll honour them when we’re safe.”
They were definitely not in a secure position. Duggan patched into the tank’s sensor feeds, trying to ignore the jostling which resulted from being crammed into a space meant to hold far fewer people.
The view outside was entirely different to the one he’d experienced on the way in. The sensors showed metal structures melted into bizarre, nightmarish shapes, with varying gaps between them. The tank forged on through the devastation. Here and there, debris blocked their path and Kidd was required to pilot them away in a different direction, through passages and alleys. Whatever remained of the enemy, they’d lost their organisation and they ducked away from the oncoming tank.
At one point, the tank sustained a barrage of high-velocity impacts against its left-hand side. The noise echoed within the confines of the interior chamber as if the hull had been struck by a hundred giant hammers. A few of the squad laughed without fear – they’d seen it before and were still here to tell the tale. The tank’s main gun thundered its retort, firing a dozen rounds at whatever the targeting computer had detected.
“Hostiles eliminated,” said Kidd.
A sudden, worrying thought came to Duggan. As soon as they crossed the perimeter of the base, the enemy warship would have a far easier job of picking them up. Even the tank’s tough outer plating wouldn’t stand up to more than a single orbital missile strike.
He connected to the tank’s comms modules, which were far superior to those on the spacesuit. “ESS Crimson, this is Duggan. Where are you?”
The comms crackled and fizzed. He repeated the message and still there was no response.
“Sir we’re coming to open ground,” said Kidd.
“Maintain course.”
He trusted McGlashan’s skill and judgement and knew she’d do everything in her power to get them off the surface. There were times when skill and judgement weren’t enough – the Crimson was undermanned and she’d have a hard job taking out an enemy warship with just her and Breeze on the bridge.
“We’ve crossed the perimeter,” said Kidd.
The forward sensor showed kilometres of rough, undulating terrain. Ice covered everything and where the rocks jutted high above their surroundings, clumps of frozen grey hung precariously over the ground below. It didn’t matter how much they tried to stay hidden – if the enemy warship was looking hard enough, it would find them. The soldiers weren’t ignorant of the risks.
“We won’t know about it when it comes,” said Rasmussen.
That was how combat went – if you died it would usually happen at once, your body incinerated in a flash of high explosives. If you managed to survive, there were medical facilities to patch up almost any injury. They’d fix you up and send you off to roll the dice again.
The minutes ticked by. Duggan tried several times to contact the Crimson without success. He felt helpless, stuck in the middle of the tank’s passenger bay and with no room for him to reach the cockpit. Kidd knew her stuff and Duggan told himself he should enjoy the ride.
“We sure kicked the crap out of those bastards,” said Cabrera on the open channel.
“Commander McGlashan kicked the crap out of them,” someone else corrected her.
“Camacho did his share.”
“It’s going to take them a while to get their base fixed up.”
“Once they stop running.”
The conversation washed away Duggan’s fears and reminded him of years gone by – the times before he’d been an officer on a warship. Concealed by the opacity of his visor, he closed his eyes and let the memories come flooding back. He reflected that his life had been easier then, but he knew he wouldn’t go back if someone offered him the chance to become a young man again.
“Our destination is dead ahead, sir,” said Kidd, her crisp tones returning him to the present.
“How far?”
“A couple of klicks. We’ll be there in less than five minutes.”
“Any sign of pursuit?”
“Nothing, sir. We left them in a mess.”
“I still can’t get through to the Crimson. Have you seen anything on the scans?” he asked. It was a long-shot. The tank was designed to work on the surface and wasn’t equipped to locate something forty thousand kilometres above.
“Not a whisper. It’s cloaked, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the Crimson I was interested in.”
They reached the coordinates which were programmed into the tank’s guidance system. It halted, awaiting further instructions.
“Put the tank on auto and bring the remote-control packs,” said Duggan. “We’re getting off.”
It only took moments until they were outside, sighing with relief to have space to move their arms and legs. Duggan looked around – there was nothing remarkable about the place, with the same rocks and ice as there was everywhere else on the planet. The base was visible from here and he saw that another of the towers had fallen over. The air above the installation was hot and the outlines of cooling metal sketched a madman’s pattern on his heat sensors. He tried the Crimson again and still there was nothing.
“Dig in,” he said. “I want positions four hundred metres to the north of the tank. I’m not expecting the enemy to have rallied so quickly, but I want us to be ready.”
The squad scattered. There were plenty of places to crouch amongst the rocks, or lie prone in the many cracks along the ground. The tank was a sitting duck for an orbiting warship and Duggan could only hope the Dreamers would be careless and overlook the smaller troops. Four hundred metres was enough for the suits to withstand the heat from a direct hit on the tank, yet close enough that they could return to it quickly if necessary.
They waited ten minutes until
someone announced the bad news.
“I think there’s movement coming from the base, sir,” said Chan. He’d climbed halfway up the side of a high rock, which gave him good view back the way they’d come.
“What sort of movement?”
“Soldiers, sir. And some kind of armoured vehicle – it’s bigger than what we’ve got with us.”
“Where the hell did they get that?” asked one of the other men. “There’s nothing left of their base.”
“The pyramid,” Duggan guessed. “It wasn’t completely destroyed. McLeod - see if the tank will get a lock on that vehicle.”
“Trying, sir. The targeting computer isn’t reading it too well.”
“Their spaceships do the same thing. Try aiming manually and knock it out for us.”
The tank was in clear sight. Its turret rotated jerkily to the right and back as McLeod corrected his aim. The muzzle thumped four times in quick succession, sending depleted uranium slugs at the approaching enemy. The angle wasn’t good and McLeod reported four misses.
“I can’t even get the plasma launchers to fire,” he muttered. “No, wait. I’ve got a lock.”
It was too late. Without warning, the hull of the tank was ruptured by a fusillade of incoming projectiles. The vehicle was built to take punishment and its turret fired in return. One of the plasma launchers was smashed away and the second failed to fire. A second and third volley knocked the tank a few metres across the ground. Then, it crashed to the ground.
“All major systems offline,” said McLeod. “We got two or three hits but they’re still coming. I reckon we’d need a Colossus tank for this engagement.”
Duggan’s faint hope that the enemy might think they were victorious after the destruction of the tank was short-lived.
“They’re moving,” said Chan. “Less than two minutes and we’ll be facing a tank and sixty troops.”
“If only we had a dozen Camachos,” said Cabrera sarcastically.
“You two should get a room,” said Berg.
The response was not polite and Ortiz stepped in to keep the troops focused.
“Come on, Lucy. Where the hell are you?” Duggan muttered to himself. The comms were empty and he felt like he might as well shout his message into space for all the response he got.
The enemy vehicle came into sight, a few hundred metres away. It was low-slung, with angles at the front and back, giving it an unusual shape. There were short bars protruding from it in numerous places, their purpose unknown. There was no mistaking the gun – a long, narrow barrel pointed from the front of its turret. The pilot evidently wished to engage as soon as possible and he’d left the following troops a distance behind.
It fired before Duggan realised what had happened. Chunks of ice and stone blew away from a position close by, sending the pieces thousands of metres away. It’s going to chew us up, he thought.
There was turbulence in the air as something ripped through the thin atmosphere. Duggan felt the suction of its passing - it dragged at his body and tried to pull him from his hiding place. A shuddering thump shook the ground, dislodging rocks and chunks of ice for hundreds of metres around. When he looked to where the enemy tank had been, there was nothing recognizable left of it. The vehicle had been crushed into a state where it was only centimetres thick.
The comms erupted in a chorus of questions. Duggan had already seen the signs of an imperfectly-hidden shape that was a little over a kilometre in length. He stared until he saw the place where the boarding ramp was descending.
“It’s the Crimson!” he shouted. “Hold your positions!”
The last thing he wanted was for someone to rush headlong towards the safety of the interior and get shot halfway there. Two of the rear Bulwarks opened up, shredding ice, stone and the approaching enemy troops.
“That’s the last of them,” said McGlashan. “Sir, you need to get onboard and fast. We don’t have long.”
Feeling an immeasurable relief, Duggan gave the order to make for the ship. As soon as the last of them had climbed into the forward airlock, he closed the ramp. The gravity engines howled under full thrust and the Crimson vanished into the sky.
Chapter Twenty-One
Duggan reached the bridge, with Chainer a few paces behind. McGlashan and Breeze saluted and he responded with one of his own.
“A timely arrival, Commander,” he said.
“We’re not clear yet, sir. The enemy warship has pursued us doggedly.”
“What are we facing?”
“I’m not sure, sir. It’s a big vessel – not like the battleship we fought, but a lot bigger than we are. It’s another kind of heavy cruiser.”
“Where is it now?”
“I don’t know exactly – somewhere behind us. It knows we’re here, even if it can’t target us directly. We lured it away past the moon of the sixth planet. Once we were out of its sight we dropped the cloak, which allowed us to lightspeed hop towards the rendezvous point. Then we came to pick you up.”
“I am especially glad you did,” said Chainer, taking his usual seat. He studied his screens. “I’ve detected the enemy vessel. They’re heading in fast towards the surface of Frades-2.”
“Are they coming towards us?”
“No, sir. We might have lost them. By which I mean Commander McGlashan and Lieutenant Breeze might have lost them.”
“Excellent – we’ll keep on our current trajectory until we’ve had time to take stock.”
He checked their course - the Crimson was pointed into space and towards nothing in particular. McGlashan had chosen a heading to put them as far from the planet as possible.
“The beacon we installed has shut down. They found it quicker than I expected, given the circumstances,” said Chainer. “It’s no problem – our AI has plenty of data to allow it to track where the signal was aimed.”
“Is it somewhere near?” asked Duggan.
“I can’t tell you, sir. I’ll need time on the super-fars to build up a map of what’s over in that direction.”
“Do you think the enemy knows what we’ve done?” asked Breeze. “We had the element of surprise, but that’s gone.”
“Properly gone,” said Chainer, clearly still buzzing from taking part in the raid on the base. “They’ll probably guess, given time. It depends what happened to the beacon – if a soldier found it and destroyed it without realising what it was, they may take a while to put the pieces together.”
“More likely we’ll find our next destination on high alert,” said Breeze.
“Maybe,” said Chainer. “We’ve already accomplished enough.”
“Not enough,” Duggan corrected him. “I want more, Lieutenant. I want to know what the purpose of that base was and I want to know more about the forces they have close to the Blackstar.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we leave, sir. Simply that our mission won’t be an abject failure if we have to return to Confederation Space.”
“That’s fine. I didn’t think you’d run out of appetite for the fight.”
“We did pick up one or two clues about the base while you were away, sir,” said Breeze. “I believe the pyramid was one of their usual power sources and the corner towers were designed to act as amplifiers.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Duggan. “I thought the pyramids could generate practically unlimited energy.”
“I don’t have an answer for you.”
“The proximity to the wormhole must be suggestive of its function,” mused Duggan, coming back to his thoughts from prior to the surface assault.
“They’ll not be doing much with it for the foreseeable future,” said Chainer with satisfaction.
“Keep up with your scans, Lieutenant. I need to know where we’re going.”
“Sorry, sir. Will do.”
Duggan opened a channel to Ortiz. “How are things going down there?”
“We’ve got four walking wounded, including Braler, sir. Flesh wounds according to Corporal Weiss. She thi
nks they’ll be ready for combat soon.”
“Meet me in the mess room in ten minutes and bring the troops. I know you’ll all be hungry, so I’ll talk while you eat.”
“Sounds good.”
Duggan was one of the first to arrive. The others came in small groups, invariably stopping at the replicators before they took their seats. It wasn’t long until Duggan was able to address them - only ten minutes after he’d left the bridge.
“Fleet Admiral Teron said he’d given me the best for this mission and he was right. We faced overwhelming odds tonight and we came out on top.” He met the eyes of Red-Gulos. “Subjos Gol-Tur told me the same about his men and again, he was right. We lost some good people, so I can’t call this a success. However, we got what we wanted – the Crimson’s AI and comms man are working on our next destination. Once we arrive, there’s a chance we’ll have to do the same thing again.”
“Welcome to the Space Corps,” said Cabrera fondly.
“The enemy’s base is destroyed. We still don’t know what its purpose was, but we can be sure they’ll not be using it again. We’re here to gather intel and to cause maximum disruption, and you can be sure that by the time we return home, we’ll have accomplished both a hundred times better than our superiors could have hoped.” He smiled “And Admiral Teron is not an easy man to please.”
There were a few dutiful chuckles before Duggan continued.
“Before I let you get on with your well-deserved meals, I need to make you aware of some field promotions I am making, in order to establish a clearer chain of command. Two of our friends from the Ghast navy will now be known as Sergeant Red-Gulos and Corporal Gax. You will afford them all the respect due to their rank and you will acknowledge their orders appropriately.”
The announcement didn’t even produce mutters, let alone open discontent. They’d once been enemies and now they were not. Above everything else, they were soldiers and they would look out for each other.
Duggan said his last words for this meeting. “We’ll hold a ceremony for our dead once we hit lightspeed.”
He left the mess room and returned to the bridge. Although he was hungry, he didn’t want to spend the time it would take him to eat, especially since he was keen to hear if Chainer had discovered anything of interest. There was news waiting for him.
Terminus Gate (Survival Wars Book 5) Page 14
