Europa Strike: Book Three of the Heritage Trilogy

by Ian Douglas

  “Almost done, Major,” Carver replied.

  “Same here,” Gunners’ Mate First Class Leslie Anderson added. “We’ll be ready to blow this place in ten minutes.”

  “Okay. We’re going to start pulling back now. Get things ready to pop as quick as possible.”

  He began giving new orders, directing the Marines to start falling back in twos. Second Platoon had been on the line longer, so they withdrew first, leaving only BJ and Nodell to keep their SLAWs working, hammering away at enemy tanks, troops, and buildings.

  Another Descending Thunder was coming down. Chesty, tracking the craft on radar, alerted Jeff through the comm net. It appeared to be shifting its landing coordinates to bring it down very close to the crater. Possibly it intended to pass low enough overhead to try to fry the Marine raiders with its plasma torch.

  Jeff directed Jellowski and Whitehead to begin putting missiles in the sky in an attempt to drive the lander clear, then told First Platoon to start falling back.

  The survivors, he saw, were dragging along the bodies of the Marines who’d been killed, as well as their discarded weapons. A Marine was never left behind by his buddies, no matter what.

  TWENTY-THREE

  27 OCTOBER 2067

  Squad Bay, E-DARES Facility

  Ice Station Zebra, Europa

  0758 hours Zulu

  Two of the Chinese assault troops were down, fist-sized holes burned into their armor. The remaining two unhooked their safety lines and crawled into the Squad Bay, spraying the redoubt with gunfire. Lieutenant Graham’s helmeted head snapped back, a bright white star centered by a small round hole slashed across his visor.

  More Chinese troops were crowding through the open airlock now. The hatch leading to the E-DARES’s lower levels was dogged and sealed, so the air in the Squad Bay was rapidly thinning, the roar of its exit dwindling into a thin flutter of escaping atmosphere. Another PRC soldier collapsed, sprawled across the combing of the lock hatch. The man behind him stretched his arm back, then snapped it forward, throwing something.

  A small, green metal sphere bounced wildly along the deck.

  “Grenade!” Lucky shouted.

  The explosion, almost silent except for a thin, high pop, didn’t carry as much of a concussive punch as Lucky had expected; the air was so thin it couldn’t carry the shock wave. But shrapnel sleeted across the barricade and punctured the metal back of an upended locker. Jagged metal sliced across Christie Dade’s shoulder, ripping the outer SC fabric and scarring the ceramic surface of her armor underneath. “I’m okay!” she shouted, continuing to fire.

  Two more grenades exploded, one of them behind the barricade. Lucky felt something bang off his PLSS, and prayed that his life-support system was still intact. No red lights on his HUD yet.

  Two more PRC troopers crumpled, blocking the open lock hatch. “Fall back!” Pope shouted. “Fall back to the core tube hatch! I’ll cover you!”

  Asterias Linea, Europa

  0803 hours Zulu

  They kept falling back to the Mantas, moving from position to position, providing overwatch support with textbook precision. Finally, only the four SLAW gunners were left on the crater rim, and Jeff told them to start leapfrogging back to the subs. There was no sign of pursuit; it would take the enemy at least an hour to cross that five-kilometer gap to the crater.

  The descending lander would be in position to inflict some serious damage on them much quicker, and that had become their main worry now. At an altitude of 3,000 meters, it began strafing the crater floor with its point defense lasers. They were small, only about five megajoules, but one bolt caught Garcia on the top of his helmet, splitting it open in a splattering burst of melted plastic and red mist. Jeff picked him up under one arm and kept moving, dragging him back toward the subs.

  Finally, however, the lander’s pilot seemed to decide that the better part of valor was to touch down safely somewhere with its load of reinforcements, not exchange laser fire with Marines until some critical system was hit and he was knocked out of the sky. With the SLAW gunners and SAM launchers still pouring fire into it, it nosed over and began descending toward the Chinese base. With a magnified image, Jeff thought he could see vapor spilling from the craft’s side—a possible hit on an expellant tank.

  Carver and Anderson were outside the subs as Jeff approached with the last of the men, and he was surprised to see both Kaminski and Ishiwara outside with them. They were planting cutter charges—half-meter tubes filled with C-280 and a radio detonator that could be rammed or pounded deep into the ice, and which had been used by the Cadmus science team to cut holes in the ice. The four men were just finishing the placement of twenty-four cutter charges in a broad circle around each of the submarines.

  He stood with Kaminski on the ice as the last of the Marines clambered up ladders onto the Mantas’ wings and filed inside.

  “What are you doing out here, Frank?”

  “Hey, I’m fine, and you didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun out here to yourself, did you?”

  “Your head better?”

  “Yeah. S’funny. I think the ice blocks the effects, pretty much. Up here, I just feel a kind of a gnawing…I dunno. An itch? A prickly kind of fear I can’t put my finger on. Down there, it’s lots worse.”

  “We’re going to have to go past that thing again.”

  “I know. I can handle it.”

  “You’ll have to. We’ll take the longer way ’round, this time, but you’ll still have those things buzzing in your head.”

  “Knowing what it is ought to help a lot” was Kaminski’s reply.

  Nodell and BJ, and the two First Platoon SLAW gunners, Glass and DiAmato, had taken up covering positions east of the Mantas, while the rest of the Marines got on board.

  Shigeru approached Jeff. “How went the operation?”

  Jeff’s shrug was lost in his armor. “Not as well as I’d hoped. Those landers are better protected than I thought. But the way we shot up their base, I think we put a few holes in their boat.”

  “You shouted something as you were leaving the submarine. Devil dogs?”

  “An old, old name for Marines.”

  “A strange one. It doesn’t sound…flattering.”

  Jeff chuckled. “In World War I, a German unit broke into a chateau in France and found themselves being held at bay by some very large, very mean dogs—mastiffs, or something just as nasty. The Germans called them teufelhunden, ‘devil dogs.’ Not long after that, they came up against U.S. Marines for the first time at Belleau Wood. They started calling us devil dogs, and the name kind of stuck.”

  “It never fails to amaze me how you Americans can glory in the strangest…down!”

  Both men hit the ice as rifle rounds struck, sending glittering sprays of ice chips flying. Nearby, Sergeant Lang screamed and collapsed, clutching her side.

  Jeff spun around in time to see a dozen white-clad Chinese soldiers coming over the crater rim to the southeast. They must have found a way to clear the cargo hatch on that crashed lander—or else Descending Thunders had more than one door. The SLAW gunners were already in action. Jeff and Kaminski joined in with a withering, deadly fire, knocking the attacking troops down as fast as they could shift the targeting reticles and press the firing buttons.

  The attack broke, the PRC troops scattering and taking cover. Kaminski stood, 580 raised, continuing to lay down a brutal covering fire as Jeff crawled over to Vickie Lang. She was still alive, her hands pressed over the foaming, bubbling thumb-sized hole in her armor.

  He slapped a sealer patch in place to stop her from losing any more pressure, the only field first aid available to him. Slinging his rifle, he scooped her up in his arms—tricky with the shove her suit gave his as he grabbed her PLSS handholds. Mark II armor and all, she weighed less than twenty kilos. It was an awkward carry, especially with the repulsive forces between their suits, but they crossed the uneven ice quickly, hurrying toward Manta One in a series of low, bounding s
kips.

  “C’mon, Frank!” he called. “Back to the sub!”

  “On my way, skipper!”

  Helping hands reached down to take Lang from his arms, to help him up onto the wing, to help Kaminski as he rounded the sub’s nose, still firing at the advancing PRC troops.

  “Are the anchor lines in?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re ready to blow.”

  “Let’s get aboard, then.”

  Inside the Manta, Jeff took his place next to the pilot’s console. “Everyone’s on board,” he said. “Punch it.”

  “Roger that.”

  The ice here was less than a meter thick. During the op planning, they’d been concerned about the mechanics of exfiltrating the crater; once the Mantas were beached, how could the Marines get them back into the water again?

  One scheme had involved beaching only one of the craft, while the other, tow cable in place, continued to circle under water. Twelve Marines, however, was too small a number to throw at the Chinese base; twenty-two wasn’t much better but at least gave them a chance. And without small boats or ready-made docking facilities, there was no other way to get ashore than literally beaching the entire craft on reasonably solid ice.

  The CWS science team’s inventory had come to the rescue again. The cutter charges they used for punching holes in the ice for their various probes and soundings had been perfect for cutting firing positions and foxholes, and even for digging the holes for the A-frame that had supported the International Gun.

  Now the Manta was surrounded by twenty-four cutter charges pounded deep into the ice. Carver sent a command through the VR helmet. There was a sharp shock followed by a rippling shudder through the Manta’s deck, and something pinged off the outer hull. The compartment tilted suddenly as the sub’s balance shifted, and Jeff grabbed Carver’s seat back to stay on his feet.

  Nothing more happened

  “We’re not moving!” Wojak called, looking up at the overhead.

  “Maybe we should all jump up and down,” BJ suggested.

  “Steady,” Jeff said. He could hear the creak and pop of ice now, transmitted through the hull, could feel the sub’s position shifting.

  Suddenly, the deck dropped from beneath his feet. He landed again with a thump, flexing his knees and clinging to Carver’s seatback as the Manta plunged through shattered blocks of ice and back into the much warmer embrace of the sea.

  “I think we caught a few bad guys there,” Carver said, pulling on the sub’s control stick. “They were pretty close when the charges blew.”

  “Just so we’re clear.”

  They were sinking, nose high, but the MHD drive was spooling up with its shrill whine, and the helm began answering. They were under power once more.

  “Manta Two is in the water,” Carver said, turning his helmeted head to stare at something to the left unseen by the rest of them. “They signal they’re under power. I think we made it, Major!”

  “Yeah. We made it.” With the fighting over, he could feel the adrenaline rush that had kept him moving out there fading, could feel his knees growing weak, his heart pounding, exhaustion rising from inside like a black wave. “Get us the hell out of here!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  In the sea once more, the eerie embrace of the Singer made itself known, a multi-harmonied ululation throbbing up from the depths. Siren’s song…

  Kaminski was looking in a bad way again. The Singer. They still had that gauntlet left to run.

  Connector Tunnel,

  E-DARES Facility

  Ice Station Zebra, Europa

  0805 hours Zulu

  “What d’ya think?” McCall asked. “Are they going to kick in the door?”

  They were back in a full standard atmosphere now but had left their suits sealed against the possibility of another breach. The E-DARES facility was essentially a long connector tube with a stern-upper assembly at one end, a bow-lower complex at the other. The hatch leading down from the compartment designated as the Squad Bay led to an internal airlock—numerous locks were located throughout the structure, against the possibility of a pressure loss occurring in any area—and then to a shaft connecting the two ends of the structure. The shaft housed an elevator but included a vertical crawlway with rungs set into the side of the tube. The descent was made in a number of stages. What had been transverse bulkheads when the E-DARES was horizontal were now multiple decks when it was vertical. Locking themselves through, they’d climbed five meters down to the first tube deck and waited there now, eyes on the hatch overhead.

  “Maybe they’ve given up,” Christie Dade suggested.

  “Hardly seems likely, after what they’ve been through already,” Owenson said.

  “Talk to us, Captain,” Pope called. “What are they doing?”

  “They appear to have closed the outer lock, and are now repressurizing the Squad Bay from the emergency reserve tanks.”

  “How many?” Doc McCall wanted to know.

  “Can’t tell. The security cameras in there are out. I think they shot them up. Wait a second. Watch it. They’re starting to work at jiggering the hatch to the central corridor. They’ll be coming through pretty soon now.”

  “We’re ready for ’em,” Lucky said. He lay down on the deck, behind the cover of a plastic storage crate, his rifle held out in the open, the crosshairs in his HUD centered on the locked hatch five meters above.

  Chinese People’s Mobile

  Strike Force

  Asterias Linea, Europa

  0810 hours Zulu

  General Xiang stood in the midst of devastation. The attack had been so sudden, so completely unexpected, it was still hard to understand exactly what had happened. Four Descending Thunder landers were destroyed, including three of the new ones arriving with General Lin’s force from the newly arrived Xing Feng. Seventy-six men dead. Four zidong tanke vehicles, five APCs, two tractors, four hab modules holed and useless, six storage sheds…the list of destroyed and damaged equipment went on and on.

  The People’s Mobile Strike Force had just suffered an incalculable setback.

  But not a defeat. Not a final defeat. The last communiqué from Major Huang indicated that the defenses left in place at Cadmus base were very weak. Huang’s first assault had overrun the crater, and now had the enemy penned up inside the CWS base.

  It was now only a matter of time, as Huang’s assault troops worked their way down the length of the CWS structure, one level at a time—dirty, deadly, agonizing work, but sooner or later successful.

  In a way, perhaps, the defeat here at the LZ could be justified as the diversion that had made the victory at Cadmus possible. At least, that would be a good way to present it when he made his report to General Lin.

  Lin Shankun was one of the old guard of the PRC’s senior military line. He’d fought as a child in the Great Civil War that had divided China between north and south and grown up to become one of the leaders who’d overseen the Reunification. The man did not like failure, could not accept it for any reason. During the Chengchou Campaign, he’d made a name for himself by shooting five subordinates who’d failed in their orders.

  By his own hand, with his own pistol.

  Xiang closed his eyes. The prickling, itching sensation at the back of his skull was worse now. He could hear voices—unintelligible voices, the meaning of their words just beyond the grasp of his comprehension. It was maddening, and terrifying.

  He wondered again if he was going insane.

  Or did it have something to do with the alien artifact? Dr. Zhao complained of the same headaches, the same voices. So did several of the other officers. Too many to be coincidence.

  It almost suggested an attempt at communication.

  Connector Tunnel,

  E-DARES Facility

  Ice Station Zebra, Europa

  0811 hours Zulu

  “Maybe…maybe we could talk to ’em,” Lucky suggested. He continued to hold his 580 steady, keeping the HUD cursor centered on the d
ogged-shut hatch. “Maybe try negotiating.”

  “Negotiating what?” Kelly Owenson said, sneering. “Surrender terms?”

  The hatch overhead gave a loud clang, and they heard the thump and shuffle of booted feet on the deck above, inside the corridor airlock. “I don’t think they want to surrender,” Pope said, tightening his grip on his 580.

  The hatch banged back and gunfire thundered, impossibly loud in the metal-walled compartment. Bullets shrieked their ricochets from the deck and bulkheads.

  Lucky pressed his 580’s firing button, unsure of a clear target but trying to spray fire through the open hatch.

  A grenade dropped through.

  It fell slowly in Europa’s meager gravity, but time seemed to stretch, to slow, making the drop of the green baseball seem to take forever.

  But Doc McCall was already on his feet, reaching out, grabbing the grenade and pulling it to his chest, falling forward, full length, smothering the thing with his body. The others were on their feet or on their backs, pouring laser fire up through the gaping hatchway, firing at movement, at IR shapes painted on their visor HUDs, at vaguely seen shapes and at shapes they thought they saw.

  Doc hit the deck, and then the grenade exploded, a terrifying eruption of sound that stabbed at the ears like daggers. The concussion slammed Doc against the bulkhead, and staggered the others. A second explosion roared, this one from the airlock at the top of the ladder. Someone up there must have had a second grenade, been hit by the Marines’ fire, and dropped it.

  Doc screamed.

  Manta One, Europan Ocean

  0912 hours Zulu

  The Manta was steering a course that should take it well to the north of the blockading line of black smokers, staying at a relatively shallow depth. The hope was to avoid the Singer artifact entirely by passing a couple of hundred kilometers to the north of it. The new course took them out of the way, but all in the Manta’s aft compartment agreed that a couple of extra hours suited up and in sardine mode was a small enough price to pay to avoid further injury to Sergeant Major Kaminski.