Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  The road itself had been going out of shape for years. The indentured workers had constructed it—often escaping and running off to join the bandits—and it was poorly maintained. The ADC had been interested in establishing secure lines of transport into the interior of the continent, yet they hadn’t been interested in the investment required to produce solid roads. The indentured workers and their supervisors had cut corners wherever possible and the roads were decaying badly. George wasn’t particularly surprised—it was typical of Avalon—yet the Council had refused to do anything about it. It was as if they wanted to limit communications between the cities and the outlying farms.

  Perhaps they just don’t want people running away to the cities, he thought, sourly. It was something they would have to deal with, somehow. Perhaps …

  A massive explosion shook the entire convoy. A mine had detonated right under the lead vehicle, sending it exploding in a ball of flame. No, he realised, it was more than just a simple mine; they’d emplaced a colossal bomb under the road. Some of the bandits would have worked on the roads and remembered their skills. A moment later, he heard the telltale sound of incoming mortar rounds, just before they started landing on his vehicles. The bastards had the entire area zeroed in!

  He dived out of the vehicle and took cover as heavy weapons started to sound out in the distance. God alone knew how the bandits had gotten control of them, but they’d caught all of Alpha Company in a trap. One of the armoured cars drove up on the ridgeline, hoping to provide cover, and exploded as it ran over another mine. George drew his pistol and looked for targets, but the bandits were well dug in, pouring fire down on the trapped soldiers. An armoured car tried to retreat and to find a way around the trap, but a heavy shell landed directly on top of it and blew it to rubble. Was that sheer bad luck … or a smart round? There was no way to know.

  Alpha Company started to return fire as training reasserted itself, but George could see that it was already too late. With wrecked vehicles on both sides of the ends of the road, they couldn’t get the other vehicles out until they managed to clear the roads, which would be difficult under fire. The bandits weren’t acting like normal bandits at all; they were acting more like soldiers or insurgents. They had Alpha Company pinned down and helpless.

  He keyed his radio. “We made enemy contact,” he reported, hoping that the enemy couldn’t jam his signal. Beta Company was nearby and Delta Company would be nearing the Fort. They could probably punch their way out if necessary. “Lieutenant, have Beta Company rerouted to…”

  “Beta Company is pinned down, sir,” Lieutenant Spencer reported. “The Fort itself is under attack!”

  George felt his mouth fall open. They’d badly underestimated the bandits if they could pull off a successful attack at three different locations at once. The plan struck him as a textbook plan, one guaranteed not to work so well in real life, except he’d allowed his contempt for the enemy to blind him and he’d walked right into it. The bandits probably intended to just keep dropping shells on them until they were wiped out, or perhaps they intended to take the Civil Guardsmen hostage. They had a plan and the ball was firmly in their court.

  His radio buzzed. “Sir, this is Hellfire-Three,” a new voice said. “We are inbound to your position; ETA one minute, forty seconds. What are your orders, sir?”

  The helicopters, George realised. Pinned down as he was, it was impossible to get any sense of the enemy positions, but they had to be dug in all around Alpha Company’s position. Had all of the bandits come out to fight? Intelligence’s best estimate was that there were upwards of ten thousand bandits in the badlands, spread out over a wide area. Even a few hundred could have pulled off such an attack, if they had planned it carefully and had access to heavy weapons. Where had they come from?

  “I want a full missile spread around our location, danger close; I say again, danger close,” he ordered. There was no time for half measures. “Make one pass and then assume orbit and prepare to give fire support.”

  He heard the noise of the helicopters as they flew closer, two massive black objects hanging in the sky. The two helicopters parted, spreading out to start targeting the enemy, when a streak of light shot up from the ground and blew one of the helicopters into a massive fireball. George barely had time to realise what had happened before the second helicopter went the same way. The bastards had HVM missiles! There was only one place on Avalon where they could have gotten their hands on those, he knew, and he swore that if he survived the ambush, he’d tear the Civil Guard apart to find the traitor who’d sold them to the bandits.

  But for now, he was trapped.

  And the most competent soldiers of the Civil Guard were trapped with him.

  CHAPTER 31

  Superior speed and firepower combined are the keys to victory. One alone may grant you victory; two combined will offer certain victory.

  - Major-General Thomas Kratman (Ret), A Civilian’s Guide to the Terran Marine Corps.

  “The Civil Guard is in trouble, sir,” Gwen said.

  Edward nodded, studying the display in front of him. It was easily the most advanced system on the planet—the Civil Guard was bottom of the list for new equipment—yet it wasn’t easy to make out what was going on. His team had vectored two satellites to positions from which they could observe what was going on, but nothing seemed to quite add up. The bandits had set a carefully-planned ambush that had, so far, worked perfectly. It wasn’t like them at all.

  “They had HVM missile launchers,” Edward said, in disbelief. HVM launchers were fire and forget weapons, simplified to the point where a total novice could use one with a few minutes of instruction, yet they were well beyond anything the bandits could have produced for themselves. There were only two places on Avalon where they could have obtained such weapons and both of them were meant to be under strict tight security. The implications of losing launchers from either of them were disturbing as hell. The Civil Guard’s security had to be worse than he had dared imagine.

  “And smart warheads for their mortars,” Gwen added. “There’s no way that a total novice of a fire team could have dropped such an accurate shot on the Civil Guard, not without an unbelievable amount of luck.”

  Edward nodded. “They don’t have very many of them,” he agreed. It made sense, or so he thought. If the bandits had had more than a dozen such rounds, Alpha Company would have been wiped out. The bandits might have been able to produce mortars on the planet, but they couldn’t have produced the smart warheads. There was only one place on the planet where they could have found those. “Get me a link with the Raptors.”

  The display altered, revealing the Raptors racing out towards the mainland as fast as they could fly, each one carrying a platoon of Marines to reinforce the platoon house and the Civil Guard. Edward couldn’t understand why the bandits had set an ambush and then set out to destroy—rather than delay—a pair of Civil Guard units, but they wouldn’t last long against armed Marines. They were going to be chopped to pieces …

  He looked up at the display and swore as the pieces fell into place. “They’re not gunning for the Civil Guard at all,” he said, angrily. The sheer chutzpah of the enemy plan was stunning, fully the equal of a hundred other plans Edward had seen developed by armchair generals. “They’re gunning for us!”

  Gwen stared at him, astonished. “They’d have to be out of their minds,” she protested, surprised. “They can’t take us on in open combat.”

  “Look at the map,” Edward said, tapping it with a long finger. “They set a pair of ambushes along the obvious approach routes for the Civil Guard and pin them down, rather than fleeing for the badlands as they normally do. The Civil Guard takes the bait because they expect the bandits to be fleeing, except the bandits have set an ambush and the Civil Guard blunders right into it. So why haven’t the bandits tried to break off or destroy the Civil Guard before we can get to them?”

  “They’re the bait,” Gwen said. “They can’t hope to pull it o
ff, can they?”

  Edward shook his head, trying to project confidence. The enemy had produced a nasty surprise, but he had confidence in his Marines to adapt and react to the new threat. The more he looked at the map, the more he saw the weaknesses in the enemy plan … if his Marines lasted long enough to take advantage of them.

  “Pass a general message to all units,” he ordered. “I want all of us to be using a strict microburst-only policy, nothing else. No radio transmissions of any kind. I bet you that if they have access to Civil Guard military equipment, they have access to their communications gear as well.”

  “No bet,” Gwen said. “They could have far more heavy weapons in reserve than we’ve seen.”

  “Probably,” Edward said. He keyed the map as the satellites came into position to observe the fighting on the ground. Unsurprisingly, the Civil Guard companies were still hemmed in by rather less accurate mortar fire. The first shot had to have been with a smart warhead then, or perhaps they’d had a dose of beginner’s luck. There was no way to know now. “I want the Raptors to land here and the Marines are to proceed overland to relieve Alpha Company.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gwen said, neutrally. “They’ll have to swing around the area, sir. That will slow us down before we can deploy.”

  “Ten gets you twenty that the enemy have dug-in antiaircraft weapons platforms along our most likely approach path,” Edward said. It was basic tactics; Marines on the ground were tough formidable fighters, but Marines in aircraft were vulnerable to a simple missile. He’d seen entire Marine units wiped out on Han when enemy aircraft had engaged their transports during one of the early battles. That had been a clusterfuck to remember. “They can’t have too many of them, or they would be in Camelot dictating terms to the Governor.”

  His hand traced out an angle of approach on the map. “I want the Marines from the platoon house to leave Alpha and Beta Companies alone and head to here,” he said, tapping another location. “When they realise that their ambush has failed to produce the desired effect, they’ll try to break off and retreat. I want them in position to block their retreat before they can get out of sight and into the badlands.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gwen said. “Do you have any other orders?”

  “Warm up my command vehicle,” Edward added. “I’m going out there personally.”

  “No you are not,” Gwen said, firmly. She fixed him with a gimlet stare. “You are the senior officer on this station and you are not to put your life at risk. You have a capable command team on the ground and they can handle anything the enemy might deploy against us.”

  Edward nodded sourly, knowing that she was right. Part of him wanted to suit up and get stuck into the bandits who had looted, raped and killed all along the perimeter, but his duty was to remain on Castle Rock and coordinate the response from a place of safety. His lips parted in a humourless smile. Marines normally didn’t graduate to REMF—Rear Echelon Mother Fucker—status until they reached the rank of Colonel and even then a Colonel might be expected to serve on the battlefield. Only Major-Generals, the highest permanent rank in the Corps, never saw the face of battle. A lowly Captain who avoided battle would have been a scandal anywhere else. On Avalon, she was right. His place was out of danger.

  “Yes,” he said, flatly. “Warn everyone; the enemy may have heavier weapons than we have yet seen. Tell them to be on their guard.”

  -o0o-

  Jasmine braced herself as the Raptor tilted sharply and fell out of the sky in a controlled crash dive … or at least she hoped that it was a controlled crash dive. The young men and women back at Castle Rock has no idea how lucky they were, for Castle Rock’s limited facilities couldn’t even begin to match the facilities available at the Slaughterhouse. Jasmine had dived out of more aircraft in a month than she’d ever had to dive out of in her entire active career. In the process, she had learnt a deep and abiding respect for the crazy pilots who flew Marine aircraft. They might have been Auxiliaries, and therefore not pureblood Marines, but there was no doubting their bravery.

  “Landing in ten seconds,” the pilot said, through the intercom. “Please put your vomit back in your tummies and thank you for flying Sick Comet Airlines.”

  The usual chorus of insults and catcalls failed to materialise as the aircraft touched down and Marines lunged to get out of the plane before the enemy started firing on the grounded aircraft with mortars. Jasmine joined the exodus and sprinted out into the sunlight, wincing slightly as her HUD updated with datastreams from the other Marines. They were spreading out around the aircraft, just in case the enemy knew where they were going to land and had arranged a welcoming committee. It should have been impossible, but any Marine who had made it through the Slaughterhouse knew to have a healthy respect for the Demon Murphy. It wouldn’t have been the first time Marine forces had accidentally landed on top of an enemy nest.

  “No contact, no contact,” Lieutenant Faulkner reported. Jasmine heard the whine from behind her as the Raptor lifted off and headed back to a safe LZ some kilometres away from the battlefield. They’d be there when the Marines needed them, once the Marines had suppressed any remaining HVM threat. A Marine Raptor was a tough bird, but a direct hit with an HVM would be lethal. “There are no enemy forces on our LZ.”

  “Understood,” Captain Stalker said. His voice sounded odd through the encrypted microburst channel. “Good hunting.”

  Jasmine put an audio-discrimination program into primary mode as the Marines spread out, moving through the fields with a speed that would—hopefully—shock and awe their opponents. Even without powered combat armour, any Marine could have won a long-distance marathon race with ease … and wearing the armour, they could move with the speed of graceless leopards. Jasmine remembered the first days of wearing the armour, when she had been able to jump into the air and leap small buildings in a single bound, before they’d been taught that any fool who showed herself that clearly would be killed by the enemy. The program, working on the suit’s receptors, warned that there was shooting and gunfire in the distance.

  “Seems kind of hard on the farmers,” Joe observed, as they entered a field of corn and started to trample through it. “What will they do when the crops fail because of us?”

  “Would you rather head up the roads and get blown to hell when a mine detonates?” Blake demanded. The usual banter was gone, blown away by the HVM missiles that had destroyed the Civil Guard helicopters. The bandits were suddenly no longer a laughing matter. “I’m sure that the Captain will do his best to ensure that we pay proper compensation and save them from having to go even further into debt.”

  Jasmine scowled inwardly as the first group of Marines leapt over a wooden fence, one she could have jumped even without the suit. The internal map on her visor was reporting that they were closing in on Alpha Company’s position, yet they had seen no sign of the enemy, even on the live feed downloaded from the drones that the Lieutenant had launched as they deployed. Each of the drones cost upwards of twenty million credits each, yet he’d launched them without hesitation, a worrying decision in the circumstances. He expected to run into real trouble.

  A flicker of energy in the distance popped up on the display, a moment before a flare of blue-white light shot past her, narrowly missing two of the Marines. She threw herself down and started to bury herself in the soil as pulse after pulse ranged towards them, daring them to keep moving forward and impale themselves on the plasma bolts. Her suit provided an intelligence estimate as she crawled towards the edge of the field, warning her that at least four medium-sized plasma cannons had been emplaced ahead them. Jasmine had used the weapons herself and knew their limitations—they had a nasty habit of overheating when the weapons were fired too quickly—yet it was evident that their new owners had never even heard of the concept. They were firing too rapidly for that.

  “We could just stay low,” Joe said. There was an odd quiver in his voice and Jasmine winced, wondering if he was truly healed after his last encounter
with a plasma cannon. He should have stayed in regeneration longer, but very few Marines would stay in the tank any longer than they absolutely had to. “We give them seven minutes and the bastards will blow themselves up.”

  “Not before they get lucky and rip us to shreds,” Blake growled. He didn’t sound happy, but Jasmine could hear the note of concern in his voice as well. The platoon was her family and something that affected one of them affected all of them. “One shot in the wrong place and your family will be getting a sealed casket for your remains.”

  “As you were,” Lieutenant Faulkner ordered. “Prepare to start throwing grenades.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jasmine said. A grenade fell out of her suit’s storage compartment and into her armoured hand. She cocked her wrist, running through possible trajectories with the suit’s computer systems. “Ready…”

  “Now,” Faulkner snapped. A line of twelve grenades flew towards their targets. Two went wide, but the remainder detonated near the plasma cannons. The explosions blew the enemy position into flaming ruin, vaporising the bandits before they had a chance to escape. Jasmine ran forward with the rest of the platoon, looking for targets, but there was no point. The entire bandit position had been wiped out.

  “Camouflage netting,” Blake said, as he tripped over something on the ground. There was a rare note of wonder in his voice. “They hid their guns under fucking camouflage netting.”

  “Clever,” Jasmine said, as her suit registered incoming mortar rounds, splashing down around the platoon. The enemy fire wasn’t very accurate, but a single hit would cripple a Marine, even if it didn’t kill him outright.

  “Take them,” Faulkner ordered. “Move now!”