A smattering of rifle fire announced the death of the tank crews.
An auto-text message appeared from Connors. The FAC advised that they were facing increasingly heavy resistance as Gray ships were vectoring in from around the planet as well as from orbit. Their position was becoming untenable.
Another formation of dragoons screamed past overhead, unable to hear the cheers below.
Tony saw that the counter had reached thirty-three thousand and he turned to look back at the sprawling research facility. Very few Humans were coming out now. He took a look at the locater trace. The sweep teams had been through the complex, killing Grays and releasing bound Humans and they were bringing the last of them out.
Some evacuees were being carried but most were able to walk. The last of the stragglers were almost at the landing zones.
Somehow, though it had seemed like an eternity, the whole operation now seemed as though it had passed in the blink of an eye, and Tony was mentally scrambling to ensure his forces withdrew in good order. He activated the ‘prepare to withdraw’ icon, causing it to flash in the lower left corner of every Marine’s heads-up display.
He looked at the overall image in his HUD. The last lifts were almost ready to return to the Xipe Totec. He opened a channel. “All ground units, disengage. Break contact and fall back to the landing zones.”
The last of the civilian lifts ascended and they were replaced almost immediately by dropships. A series of detonations announced the start of the withdrawal.
The withdrawing units were blasting large chunks of the surrounding towers into the street to slow the enemy pursuit. The first of the withdrawing troops began streaming past him. He knew a few of the wounded would be running their armor on ‘platoon flow’, an algorithm that let the armor stay with the unit and board a drop ship even if it’s wearer was unconscious or dead.
A few of the Marines raced past in no armor at all. They were the ones who’d pulled a wounded comrade out of his disabled suit and stuffed him into their own, setting it to platoon flow before closing it up.
It was a risky thing to do. Even a near miss from enhanced conventionals would generate enough force to kill if you had no armor on. Still, few Marines would hesitate to offer their suit to a wounded man.
He turned and ran with the last few men, boarding one of the last two dropships. His locater feed confirmed all living markers were off the surface. “All aerial units, ground withdrawal is complete. Disengage and withdraw to the Xipe Totec. All dragoon units, withdraw directly to the Totec as well. We’ll find room for you somewhere.”
The clatter of rifle barrels on the deck accompanied the rapid ascent of their ship and they swung around with sickening speed. The dropship accelerated, loose gear sliding aft to strike the rear ramp.
The ride was quick. The ramp opened and Tony retracted his helmet, glad to smell the hydraulics, the ozone and the stink of his fellow Marines. It was the smell of home. He stopped on the ramp, stunned by the cheering civilians crammed into every available spot.
“C’mon,” a ground-crewman roared at him. “We’ve got to get this pig stowed to make room for the rest.”
Tony jumped down and scrambled out of the way as the ugly ship lowered out of sight. A new elevator platform slid into place above it, closing the large opening in the deck.
The gunships started arriving, their crews climbing out to thunderous applause from the rescued Humans. They were absorbed by the crowds as their ships disappeared beneath the deck.
Last to come aboard were the dragoons. The automated storage system on the Xipe Totec wasn’t compatible with their assault craft and so they’d be tied down on the main hangar deck while the ground crews serviced them.
Though the civilians had been through a harrowing experience, they still managed to muster enough energy to celebrate their hometown heroes. The dragoon crewmen were treated to a thunderous welcome. The Irricanans flowed onto the hangar deck, hugging, shaking hands and kissing the flight crews.
“Xipe Totec confirms recovery of the strike team,” the communications officer announced.
“Very well,” Urbica replied. “Engineering, adjust geometry for phase two.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Daffyd responded.
“Telemetry confirms a high orbital exit point,” the sensor officer advised.
“Xipe Totec,” Urbica began, “you are clear to initiate phase two.”
The revelry on the hangar deck was interrupted by the buzz of auto-cannon fire reverberating through the carbon and steel fabric of the Xipe Totec. Now that the Narsa end of the wormhole had been moved out into space, the ship could fire its deadly AM rounds without the blast coming back through the open gate.
It had nearly been missed during the planning session. No Human force had ever incorporated a portable wormhole generator into an attack plan before. Fortunately, Daffyd had been there.
He’d pointed out that, though the initial wormhole geometry would let them deliver the AM rounds with no warning to the defenders, the Xipe Totec would be destroyed by the resulting blast. The wormhole effectively meant the Marine vessel was sitting only meters away from her target, even though she was still in the atmosphere of the gas giant.
By moving the Narsa end of the wormhole out into space, they prevented the blast of their ordinance form funneling back through the opening and killing them.
The deep hum of the main batteries vibrated the deck plates and the heavy rounds streaked through the wormhole, following the lighter munitions.
The pattern continued as screens of lighter rounds preceded the heavy munitions, distracting the defensive fire and increasing the chance of complete destruction at each target. Even one of the smaller-caliber AM rounds would be enough to cripple a city. One of the larger ones would remove all traces.
A young woman stood with the crowd in the central passageway, touching the shoulder of each Marine and dragoon as they passed. Tears ran down her face. She’d been in a state of altered consciousness for the last year and a half. Somehow, boredom wasn’t a possibility in the pods but she still knew she’d been locked away for a very long time.
Some of her fellow prisoners, among the more recent abductees, had recognized the dragoons as being mostly from Irricana and entirely from the Gliesan systems. It seemed almost inconceivable that the corrupt Gliesan Sector Defense Forces could have fielded such a unit, but she certainly wasn’t complaining.
Some of her family might be standing here with her. They might even have died on that world and the thought had been a torment in her semi-conscious state. She looked to her left as a new group of dragoon pilots approached and her heart leapt with joy.
Stepping out from the crowd to block the path, she smiled up at a surprised pilot. “Lars!” She threw her arms around his neck.
The crowd cheered even louder as Bjorghildr found her brother.
“Xipe Totec reports rounds complete,” the communications officer announced. “Target destruction estimated at ninety-seven percent, planet-wide.”
“Very well, signal both ships to stand by for the jump to Irricana.” Urbica activated the channel to engineering. “Engineering, bridge. Restore geometry and configure for a transit to Irricana.”
“Aye, ma’am,” the ‘father of mobile wormhole generators’ replied.
Irricana
“That’s the last of them, Colonel,” Lars said, waving at the heavily guarded docking portal.
Warships like the Xipe Totec almost never physically docked with a station, especially out on the Rim, but the prospect of ferrying thousands of rescued civilians had tipped the scales. Security would hardly be compromised any further by docking.
If anything, it was improved by getting them out faster, but it hadn’t prevented the media from sneaking aboard.
Everything Urbica said was being listened to in real-time, down on Irricana, so she had to be careful. But it also meant she could use that publicity as a weapon.
“Good,” she told Lars. “The soone
r we can get back to Home-world, the better. The threat has been neutralized out here for the time-being.”
A small delegation arrived at the portal and they were directed toward Urbica. One man stopped, faced aft and came to attention. He was paying respect to the Emperor’s person sigil.
Morgan. Old disciplines die hard.
Balthazar shook Urbica’s hand. “Colonel,” the governor boomed, “there’s hardly a single family down on Irricana who doesn’t owe you and your forces their heartfelt thanks.”
The man was almost certainly one of the conspirators, but it was better to leave him in place for now. Far better an enemy whose sins you know.
“Well, Governor, your own police provided us with the key to cracking the mystery.” Urbica nodded at Paul.
“That’s right,” Paul agreed as Morgan joined them. “Your chief here was the one who made the link between the missing citizens and the secessionist attacks.”
“He did?” Balthazar turned on Morgan in surprise. “How long did…”
“Operational security, Governor,” Paul cut in smoothly. “Anyone in possession of that knowledge would have been in grave danger.”
“Standard procedure,” Morgan added, “when you do a joint operation with the Eye.”
“Looks like someone’s going to drink for free for the rest of his life!” The governor gave Morgan a slap on the back.
They took a quick shuttle ride and Urbica led the party on a quick tour of the captured ship. She wanted to make sure CentCom couldn’t just kill them all and dispose of the ship. They had a tendency to favor the status quo and a potential game-changer like the Sucker Punch could easily end up scrapped. Knowing the Gray shipyard had been destroyed might give the military a false sense of security. It didn’t take much to push strategic imperatives to the back burner.
Every senior officer at CentCom owed their position to a grand senator. Disruptive innovations like a portable wormhole generator might mean a huge shift in defense contracts. Entire shipyards might close, leaving some senators in political jeopardy.
Showing off the ship to the media, even without mentioning her jump capabilities, would help nudge the idiots at CentCom in the right direction. Morgan held back.
“You’re so full of it,” he told Paul, “you’re sneezing brown.” His grin took the sting from his insult.
“We never would have known to look for those missing citizens if not for our conversation. Of course, Balthazar’s probably not very fond of you for helping to scuttle the scheme.”
Morgan chuckled. “You’re still an ass,” he insisted, “but so am I, so it’s not like I’m complaining.”
Santa Clara
“There it is,” Eddie announced. “Lining us up for a straight transit.
He pulled the Salamander up and climbed away from the night surface of Irricana. The small craft rolled and dove straight down into the event horizon of a wormhole that gushed with icy water.
They emerged into an eerie, milky blue ocean teeming with life.
“Wèi!” Eddie exclaimed indignantly, throwing the armored sub into a hard turn to avoid a hanging block of ice the size of a heavy cruiser. “Who the hell put that there?” He made a fine adjustment to the sonar feeds.
“Let’s go a little deeper, shall we?” The squadron leader angled them down toward the floor of the enclosed ocean.
Santa Clara was entirely encased in a crust of ice that averaged thirty kilometers in thickness. Beneath that layer, a ninety-kilometer-deep layer of ocean surrounded the rocky moon itself. It was kept in a liquid state by the energy resulting from tidal flexing. As the moon rotated, the rocky interior was constantly being deformed by the gravity of the super-planet it orbited.
They descended into the darkness without picking up any local ships. Though there were thousands of harvesting subs collecting silicon nodules from the ocean floor, they rarely ascended unless they were offloading at the world’s only factory sub.
The fishing vessels that kept the gigantic factory sub fed numbered in the hundreds, but they always remained within a hundred-kilometer radius. Encountering them in billions of cubic meters of water was extremely unlikely.
“Picking up an ELF beacon,” Eddie slowed the small craft. “Looks like it has a data stream.”
The Extremely Low Frequency beacon system was a one-way transmitter. Requiring antennae as long as fifty kilometers, it was impossible to equip ships with their own transmitters, and the data rate was incredibly low.
Santa Clara used the system to let harvesters know when the factory ship would be in their area.
“Getting coordinates,” Eddie said. “Got to be an easy job, running the ELF system. Takes an hour just to say where they are. Of course, they won’t be there anymore by the time the signal completes.”
“Maybe,” Paul hedged. “The factory ship is almost the size of Vermillion. I’d imagine a ship the size of a city doesn’t push through the water very fast.”
Eddie shook his head in amazement. “Seems like an expensive way to set up a city. Why not just build on the outer surface of the ice?”
“They’re practically immune to orbital bombardment down here,” Urbica offered. “No chance of getting through that ice and hitting them at depth, even assuming you knew where to shoot.”
“And it puts them closer to food and silicon,” Paul added.
The Salamander banked gently.
“We’ve got the neighborhood,” Eddie announced. “It’s an easy, thirty-two-hour run.”
Hitting Rock Bottom
“Picking up pings from the harvester,” Eddie announced. “I’ll go up and take the conn for the drop-off. We want to get close enough to get you inserted before they reel in their vacuum heads.”
“Eddie…” Paul looked up from his meal, a frown of concern on his face. “… If we can hear their pings, doesn’t that mean they can ‘see’ us?”
“Doubtful,” the squadron leader told him. “We’ve got anechoic tiling to cut down on the signature. If they did get anything back, they’d think we were a whale or a shoal of fish.”
“How long since you piloted a Salamander?” Paul raised an eyebrow.
Eddie didn’t take it personally. “Six years since my demobilization date, but you know the old saying: nobody’s ever heard of a pilot forgetting how to operate a Sally.”
Urbica grinned. “’Cause if they do forget…”
Eddie brought his hands together and made a crushing motion. “Nobody ever hears about it.”
“Yeah, I remember that one from amphib training,” Paul told him. “It’s about as funny the second time around.”
“It’s all in the delivery.” Eddie took a slight bow. “And speaking of delivery, we’ll be dropping you in the nodule field, just outside of their active terrain-mapping sonar.”
“The harvester has enough time to hit the end of that field before ascending to meet the factory ship,” one of the dragoons offered. “Why not just drop us at the far end and avoid the risk of detection?”
Paul looked down, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Karl! Why did you have to ask him that? Haven’t you heard enough?”
Eddie laughed. “Even with the two emergency fuel cells per team-member, your shields are gonna go through power a hell of a lot faster than you would in space. Your suit’s integrity field is going to be holding back twelve thousand atmospheres while you wait for that vacuum-head to come close. If you miss it at the end of the field, I’m not gonna have enough time to come get you.”
“Are you happy now, Karl?” Paul sighed.
“Are you claustrophobic, Inspector Grimm?” Urbica grinned, her eyes flashing with mischief.
“No,” Paul replied irritably. “I’m crushaphobic.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the crushing,” Eddie said helpfully. “At this depth, your air supply would incinerate the instant the field gave out.”
“Why are you still here?” Paul asked loudly. “Shouldn’t you be piloting this abomination?”
/>
Eddie grinned, sketched a salute and turned for the control room. “Dropping you in twenty, so get ready, kids.”
Paul followed the team down to the escape trunk and put his suit back on, feeling like a condemned man. By the time they finished double-checking each other’s external fuel cells, the green light by the hatch began blinking.
They closed the hatch and activated their helmets.
Water began flowing in around their feet, forcing the air out through a valve in the ceiling. The pressure steadily climbed, but Paul had turned off the display in his suit’s heads-up display. He only knew he was already at a killing pressure by the time the water reached his ankles.
Somehow, it was less oppressive as the cold liquid passed above his head. He almost felt calm, but it was only a calm in comparison to his earlier agitation. The outer door finally opened and they let themselves drop to the ocean floor where they were surrounded by small fist sized nodules of mixed metal.
As the Salamander moved off, they activated buoyancy control and ascended to a height of ten meters and Paul’s fears had some leisure time again. With nothing to do but wait, his mind kept mulling over the unforgiving weight of water and ice that sat above him.
He wondered how much the maintenance crews on the harvesters were paid. It had to be a lot. Paul would have needed a hell of a lot of money to do this for a living.
He had no idea why this should be any more frightening than a shield failure in space, but fear didn’t always make sense. He tried to distract himself by thinking about Julia Urbica.
He’d been loyal to the Nathaniel family for a long time, but he’d never really had anything more personal. He wondered if that was changing. Julia came from a moderately well-placed family. Her father would likely frown on a match to the son of a miner.
Rebels and Patriots (Imperium Cicernus Book 3) Page 20
