Company 36 had all the gear and supplies they could salvage from The Tiberion. They also had a small fixer cloud and did all that they could to expand it at short notice.
They mustered twenty thousand support troops from the battered landers, who were thus far poorly armed and led. But at least they were additional numbers.
Even as the defenders attempted to flee and hide, in order to regroup, they still came under attack. Many things started to go wrong. The Spacer Marines were too few and spread too thin to properly support the slower moving local forces. From the very outset, their hard-pressed defenses and all of the helpless civilian areas now re-exposed quickly began to collapse.
Help would still not reach them, at best, for almost a standard day.
And a standard day outnumbered by the Ejjai invaders could be a either a very long, or an abruptly short time during the war
Bravo Command ordered them to do their best, and if possible, to find an optimal place to make a defensive stand and hold their positions until relieved.
The first thing Naero and Om did was nail the invader fleets and landing craft in the distance with a surprise attack of makeshift atomics, while the overconfident slashers were still taking their lazy time unloading their gunships and gravtanks.
That reduced the odds somewhat.
Bravo and the defenders hid behind layers of unit shielding and slugged it out against sortie after sortie of enemy attacks upon their positions. The fixers were taxed in their monumental efforts to maintain and replace the shield devices repeatedly going down, and scrounge for weapons, ordnance, and explosives of any kind from the battlefield to hold the enemy off.
Naero had to hand it to the locals. They knew what was at stake, after all that they had gone through. A few more volunteers trickled in to pick up weapons from the fallen, but they only slipped in a few hundred at a time.
The defenders fought and sacrificed bravely as the situation remained grave.
Then something very strange happened.
A bright green glow appeared in the sky off in the distance, and according to the long-range scans of their fixers, something, or some powerful force over that way was drawing off the enemy in large numbers, and attacking and destroying them with impunity.
Then a similar red glow appeared in the sky on the right rear flank of the enemy, and the fixers reported the same thing. The invaders faced some other kind of unstoppable force or forces and were being devastated.
These new threats the enemy faced took some of the heat off of Bravo and the locals, giving them a much needed breather.
Shetanna led a stealth platoon out to scan the enemy lines. They took over a small force of enemy gravtanks and attacked the enemy lines in sweeps. Then they brought the captured, modified tanks back to their own lines, to dig some of them in and use that armor and additional firepower to hold the enemy off for three more crucial hours.
In the end, the enemy finally managed to knock out all of those captured gravtanks.
More fresh enemy gravtanks poured in. Bravo took them out with the last of their pulse cannons, float-seeker smartmines, and autoguns. Most of their Marine meks were already destroyed by that time.
Waves of Ejjai shock troops increased their attacks, sensing weakness. The weary defenders gunned them down with small arms and hurled them back again and again with grenades and microbombs.
Yet all the while, the constant fighting also slowly wore away at the defenders.
Naero and 36 led a final sortie under cover of their last shield pod, to gather weapons and gear from the heaps of enemy dead. The fixers also helped collect the gear and distribute it among the remaining defenders, less than a thousand in all.
These were all the weapons they had left to make their final stand.
They immediately came under heavy fire. Their last shield pod went down as they retreated back behind their reinforced defensive positions.
Spacer Marine snipers maintained a steady, withering, lethal fire against any troops who showed themselves, in or out of vehicles and armor.
The defenders retreated further within their tiers of defensive positions as the invaders pounded them with artillery and tank fire.
As soon as the artillery barrage let up, the invader wave attacks swept in once more.
Firefight after firefight erupted, waxing and waning, blazing back and forth.
Then the slashers unleashed another tank and artillery barrage, right in the middle of yet another infantry assault and firefight. They didn’t care if they cut down their own troops, as long as they could blast the defenders to dust at the same time.
Naero could hold back no longer. If she did not act now, they would be swept away. She had been conserving the last of her Cosmic energies and abilities for the final need.
This was it.
At least they had the enemy whittled down to the point where she could make a difference.
In the confusion, she slipped out, cloaked, with a single cloaked fireteam.
They hit the enemy artillery batteries and tank emplacements with all of their remaining explosives and everything they could muster. They took out as much as they could as fast as they could in the enemy’s rear where it was least expected. That would buy them some more time, until the enemy could bring up more big guns.
They ravaged the enemy’s rear areas on the way back, doing what damage they could.
At last the enemy cut them off and completely surrounded them.
A squadron of enemy gunships dropped down at the worst possible time to pour concentrated fire directly into all of the defensive positions, while more Ejjai shock troops charged in up close.
Shetanna and her fireteam rose up on their gravwings and attacked the gunships directly. They quickly damaged each of the enemy ships, crashing seven of the craft down into the packed enemy troops and exploding them. Three of the last five gunships turned and limped away, heavily damaged.
The final two gunships the Marines took over, and pulled back behind the defensive positions and trained those guns on the fresh waves of invaders.
A massive, all-out assault of countless foes swarmed on the final defenders.
Shetanna charged out with her Marine backup, cutting the enemy down and blasting them back with Chaos power lightning blasts, detonations, direct fire, and grenades. She speared the Ejjai on rods of Chaos energy and cut them down with wheeling sweeps of Chaos force and gouts of flame and blast effects.
Baeven’s voice, of all things, suddenly roared over Naero’s secured link. “Hold on, Naero. You and your people hang on, any way you can! Gaviok and I have done every thing we can on your flanks. More Marines have dropped in and are advancing on your position. Just stay alive, damn it!”
So that was what those strange lights had been in the darkness the night before. Baeven, Gaviok, and his strange crew had come to assist, and had done their best to aid them.
“Hold on,” Naero shouted to everyone. “Help is minutes away. Keep fighting Marines. Everyone fight to stay alive!”
She employed every trick that she could think of, burning through her arsenal. Every defender and Marine who could keep firing made every shot count. They kept shooting and backed her up.
Still the enemy pushed them back, by sheer numbers and ferocity, trying to drag them down.
They were fighting hand-to-hand with the foe when the first relief force struck, and dropped down among them to startle the soon-to-be-dead invaders.
Naero and her most of her people collapsed. They had plenty of wounded, but no KIA, amazingly enough.
Within the hour, the final enemy forces were crushed at last.
36 would not be the final mop-up unit next time.
Naero ducked away just long enough to send out a special thank you to her outcast uncle Baeven, Gaviok, and the rest.
How her uncle always seemed to know when she was in deep trouble still amazed her, but she was more than glad that he was out there, keeping tabs on and looking after her.
> Back on the 36 dropship, Naero also made a point of checking on Whip Konrad.
Again. Not a damn scratch.
His insanity seemed to work, at least for him.
Anyone could call up the charts and see in general how the war was progressing through the invaded system and along the broad arc of fire in the hot zones. But most frontline troops still focused only on their chunk of that front. The Alliance continued to advance. It was more or less a meatgrinder of attrition now. As long as they could keep going, each day brought them closer to victory.
Thankfully, they had avoided a point of no return with the invader numbers. But for the first few weeks and months of the war, that had been a very real and serious concern.
Fourthday and another Book Night had the Marines reading their selections and floating around once more in zero-G.
Their buddy Pete was laid up with the wounded. Chime and some others took some books to them all and even offered to read to them in shifts, while they recovered.
Naero stayed behind this time and read some poetry and some comix, but she just didn’t feel much like reading.
Her and Jonny Fox sat around sucking down Jett and gobbling up paks of Spum. Nearby, Ted Kim bragged about how smart his daughter Nikki was at two-and-a-half. His wife, musician Rena Young already had their infant little girl playing the thiolin.
Zina Gordon had just returned from a leave with her husband, Loader-Chief Lawrence Donovan and their one-year-old son Darren.
Naero turned to Jonny. “Do you want kids some day, Jonny? I might at some point, but I think I might need to find a guy first.”
Jonny yawned. “That usually works out best. But if I get married, I want either two kids…or four. You see, I think it’s better if you have them in even numbers.”
Naero laughed and almost blew Jett out of her nose. “That’s batshit crazy, you moronic goof. Even numbers? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
They laughed together.
“Well, I’m old fashioned,” Jonny said. “I want to take whatever we get by chance, and not know ahead of time. But I also want at least one girl, and one boy. One of each.”
Naero flapped her lips and gave him a raspberry. “With your stupid luck, you’ll probably get stuck with four boys, or four girls. Why risk that? Trust me. Let the docs help you out. It’s easy these days.”
“I’m serious, N. That’s just not my way.”
“Get a brain, Jonny. So, what do you want these two-to-four kids to do with their lives? Wash or load ships in some backwater starport?”
“Oh, I don’t care very much what they choose to do–as long as they’re Spacers and happy. I’m not going to push them into anything.”
Naero stared at him. “Well then…what if they want to become Marines?”
Jonny Fox sighed. “I mean what I said, N. I’m not going to push or prevent them. When they come of age, they’ll make their choice. I’ll love and support my kids in whatever they choose to do.”
“That seems pretty fair.”
He smiled and belched real loud. “I think so.”
A big commotion broke out suddenly nearby.
Tavis Marshall and Luke Barrett both happened to be drunk and mean-dog ornery at the same time. In seconds they were fighting and trying to kill each other–for real. Luckily it was just hand-to-hand.
Naero and Jonny raced in, helped break it up, and separated the two idiots before they did any real damage.
The officers on duty came in and dressed both of the goofballs down, telling them to save it for the slashers.
23
Bravo’s fleet ships were overdue for repair and refit in the fixer clouds, so they were sent back behind the lines to Naraden-6, for a few days of well-earned rest and leave.
It was spring on that world. Spring on an earthlike planet in all its verdant glory and exploding new life. Radiant sunny days, cool breezes, and warm rain showers.
The Marines of Company 36 were at a very low point. Several of them had wrestled down Nick Kowalski in Squad 3, Fireteam 2, when they had caught him trying to stick a blaster pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger the night before.
Suicide in the Spacer Marines was still extremely rare, but in the course of a long and bloody campaign, it did occasionally occur in various ways.
Since the death of his best buddy, Chang-Han, Nick had gone slowly off the deep end with grief and survivor guilt. In the end, he just couldn’t shake it, and had to be subdued before he ate a bolt.
Kowalski had seen enough and done more than his share. Time for him to get some help and get out. Time for him to get himself healthy and do something else.
The High Crusade continued to drag on, heavy fighting from world to world. It might still go on for another month or three.
But sadly, it now felt to many of the Marines as if it might never end. And that was the real fear.
Everyone was already weary, frustrated, and sick of the constant cycle of system-hopping, intense fighting, and relentless killing. They were sick of the atrocities. Just plain sick of everything. Naero felt it as much as anyone.
To make matters worse, they had just left Gurian-4.
On that isolated Corps world, many of the locals had not been properly informed about the Spacers coming to help them. With invader jamming, it just wasn’t possible. Landers went in with the Marines to help educate and inform on the fly, but in the chaos of war, the landers couldn’t be everywhere.
At first, the already panic-stricken locals thought that the Spacers were trying to take the world for themselves. To their minds, Spacers only fought with the Ejjai because they were in the way and competing with them directly.
Before all of these wrong conclusions could be cleared up, many of the local forces had fired upon Bravo Command from the start, treating them like another enemy invader. They ignored all coms to the contrary. Hatred did not go away easily. Corps conditioning could be very hard to break.
For generations, the population of Gurian-4 had been brainwashed to fear and hate spacks. The Corps spoon-fed them about what would happen if the vicious spacks ever invaded their world.
In many remote areas, even after the Ejjai were put down and defeated, there were still many among the local populations who still didn’t believe that the Spacers would actually ever go away, without subjugating the system for themselves or, at the very least–looting it in some fashion before they did depart.
Rumors and lies quickly spread. Hatred caused atrocities that had clearly been committed by Ejjai to be blamed on the spack Marines.
The old hatreds did not die easily and tensions ran high. Even as Bravo Command marched and loaded up to depart, mobs of enraged locals had repeatedly insulted, hurled garbage, shit, and even spit on the very warriors who had just saved them and their world from the Ejjai. It was a grim tragedy.
All of the Marines had been pissed off and infuriated at being treated that way. Razor Wilde, younger cousin to Anaconda and Python, cursed and pounded the hull of their dropship. “The rotten bastards. We just saved them and all of their kids and old people from the meatships! And there they had to spit and shit on us, and say good riddance, bloody spacks. Get the hell off our stinking world!”
Tempers continued to ignite. Luca Abraham jumped in fuming. “Yeah, they had the guts to spit on us? To fling shit in our faces? They’d all be meatblocks if it wasn’t for what we did for them. They wouldn’t have any goddam world left if it wasn’t for us!”
Naero and the other officers let the Marines vent and hurl stuff around for a while. It was pretty tough to choke down.
Major Luna agreed that 36 needed a break, and they were long overdue for one. When she explained the situation to General Walker, he also agreed with her.
Their ships changed course, heading for Naraden-6.
By the time they jumped there, at least the sullen Marines weren’t ready to bite heads off and chew them up.
As they came down into the enormous starport, Nae
ro ordered the blast panels on the transport opened up.
Brilliant sunlight poured through the large, plasteel viewports.
As they came down, 36 looked out, seeing peaceful meadows and grassland fields surrounding countless luxury hotels.
Naraden-6 had been a playworld, a vacation retreat world. But because of its proximity to many of the worlds that had been invaded by the Ejjai, it was quickly appropriated and transformed into a hospital world, a place for recovery, for refugees, and for shore leave for burned out troops.
Naero asked her Marines a question. “Do you goons know what Naraden-6 is famous for?”
Everyone just stared at her.
She answered her own question for them. “Many of the orphan and refugee children, rescued from many war zones, have been brought here to be kept safe until they can be sorted out and sent home once the war ends. Many of them will need new homes, but that can be sorted out later.
“For now, the weather here is stable and mild, and the local population is nurturing and supportive. Many healers, doctors, and caregivers have flocked here from many worlds to assist with that great task. If you are an orphan child from this war–after all of the hell that you’ve been through and survived–Naraden-6 might just be the closest thing to heaven that you could ever find. I think it’s going to prove to be a pretty good place for troops to relax, also.”
Josh Elkins threw his pack down hard. “So, what? What’s your point, N?”
Platoons 1-4 stared at her.
She looked back at all of them. “My point is this. Do all of you trust me?”
They blinked and didn’t know what to say to that.
“Do all of you trust me?” she asked once more.
Most of them finally nodded. A few of them looked pretty sad. Some of them muttered, “Uh-huh.”
Naero called out to them louder. “Company 36. I am asking each and every one of you again. Do you trust me?”
First Leftenant Josie Stone spoke up. “N, we trust you with our lives, Naero. You know that.”
Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade Page 23
