Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  His suit’s antigravity compensators kicked in a heartbeat before he hit the ground, slowing his fall so sharply that he felt nothing when his armored feet finally set foot on the planet’s surface. Pat brought up his rifle and looked around, searching for targets as the remainder of the lead platoon landed around him. The enemy had done a great deal of damage to the spaceport, he noted as he led the way towards the nearest building, but hadn’t managed to destroy it. Spaceports were huge, designed to soak up a great deal of damage and keep going. The terminal’s Air Traffic Control systems would have been smashed, but that hardly mattered. A single shuttle could bring in everything his staff needed to coordinate the remainder of the landings.

  He darted to one side as a stream of plasma fire leapt out at him. His men hit the deck, returning fire with their own weapons. The Theocrats had chosen to make a brief stand in one of the towers, but they hadn’t realized just how determined Pat was to take control of the spaceport as quickly as possible. The tower was blown to rubble within seconds, bodies lost somewhere within the pile of debris. The marines fanned out, half searching the damaged buildings while their comrades secured the roads leading down to the city. Pat could see smoke rising from Lothian. The city had apparently risen against the occupying forces.

  “Bring down the shuttles,” he ordered. “And order the ground forces to prepare to advance.”

  He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. The enemy had to be running short of missiles, judging by the sheer number they’d hurled against the first assault force. Even if they weren’t, the shuttles could enter orbit well out of range and then fly low to their final destinations. Pat would have been surprised if there were many surviving enemy air defense teams outside Lothian and the PDCs. The bastards who hadn’t been blasted from orbit would be lynched by the locals. Pat wouldn’t waste his time feeling sorry for them. He’d seen the results of their handiwork far too often.

  The next flight of armored marines landed, immediately fanning out to join the forces securing the approaches to the spaceport. Pat watched them deploy, checking and rechecking his Heads-Up Display for any sign of an enemy counterattack. He would be astonished if the Theocracy wasn’t already planning its next move. The spaceport wasn’t the only place he could land troops and their equipment, but it was certainly the most convenient. And the Theocrats would realize that.

  “Incoming!”

  Pat glanced up sharply as red icons flared in front of him. Mortar rounds, fired from somewhere just underneath the PDC’s force shield. He silently congratulated the enemy on their timing as he locked his suit into the datanet, allowing it to draw on his weapons to pick off the shells before they hit the ground. If the Theocrats were lucky, they might just take out a shuttle as it came in to land, crashing down on top of his position.

  But it won’t be enough to stop us, he thought.

  Civilians might expect battles to be bloodless—or, at least, not to lose any of the good guys while slaughtering hundreds of bad guys—but anyone with genuine military experience knew better. Even the most effortless of campaigns produced losses, some owing more to inexperience or incompetence than enemy action. Pat acknowledged quietly that he could be one of the casualties. If it happened, it happened. He’d steeled himself to face the possibility of his own death way back in boot camp.

  “The shuttles are coming in to land now,” Captain Rogers bawled. “Sir?”

  “Get the point defense systems set up,” Pat ordered. “And then bring in the second flight of shuttles!”

  They’d practiced the operation time and time again, but he was still awed as a seemingly endless line of shuttles landed, unloaded their cargos, and then returned to orbit to pick up the next load of marines from the giant troop transports. The enemy shot down four shuttles, but he’d calculated the probability that his forces would lose nearly a third of their supplies and had arranged for spares to be held in orbit. And as more and more troops landed, he directed them down towards the city. According to reports, the Theocracy was clearly under attack from within as well as without.

  And that led to a problem. If he attacked the PDCs, he could take down the force shields and allow the orbiting starships to flatten any remaining enemy positions within the city. But that would give the enemy more time to slaughter the city’s population. Hebrides might have a heavily armed citizen militia, but Pat doubted the remaining civilians in the city had enough weapons to put up a real fight. They’d certainly not have any heavy weapons . . .

  He gritted his teeth. “The 1st and 5th Regiments are to move against PDC One and PDC Two,” he ordered finally. “The 6th Regiment is to do what it can for the city.”

  “The enemy are on the move,” an officer reported. “They’re advancing towards the PDCs.”

  Barak nodded, unsurprised. The Commonwealth might be soft, but it wasn’t stupid. Lothian was important, yet the city wasn’t the key to Hebrides. Taking out the PDCs would allow the Commonwealth time to recover the planet and hunt down the remainder of the occupation force at will.

  “Move our own forces to block their advance,” he ordered. Thankfully, Admiral Ashram hadn’t bothered to forbid him from drawing up contingency plans. “And then destroy all sensitive material in the datacores.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The display fuzzed. Barak cursed under his breath. The Commonwealth had always been better at electronic warfare than the Theocracy. Now, with two years of experience with what worked and what didn’t, the Commonwealth could do a great deal of damage to his communications. The network he relied upon to direct the troops was already starting to collapse, while the landlines had been badly disrupted by the bombardment. But enough of them had survived for him to issue some orders.

  “Tell the troops to hold out as long as they can,” he said. “Reinforcements are on the way.”

  And that, he knew, was an utter lie.

  Pat wasn’t sure what he’d expected from William’s homeworld, but he couldn’t help feeling that there was something . . . primitive about the lands surrounding the spaceport. A handful of buildings popping out of cornfields and fallow cropland; lines of trees marking the boundaries between one set of farmland and the next. Lothian, looming to the north as the marines marched towards PDC One, looked more like a vision from the past than a modern city. Indeed, compared to Tyre City, it was tiny. The files stated that only fifty thousand people lived within its confines.

  But Lothian was at war. His sensors picked up an endless rattle of gunfire, punctuated by loud explosions and brief moments of silence. Reports from the forces probing the edge of the city were grim, warning that the Theocrats seemed to have dug in along the boundaries and were refusing to shift. They’d have to be starved out or evicted, the latter practically guaranteeing that a chunk of the city died with them. The enemy was gunning down everyone in sight.

  And it’s worse elsewhere, he thought. The resistance hadn’t made contact with the fleet, but orbital observation confirmed that the occupation force was on the run. There’ll be a slaughter if we don’t put an end to this in a hurry.

  He ducked as a hail of shellfire crashed down to the south. The enemy had dug in, turning a small town into a strongpoint. Pat gritted his teeth as counterbattery fire rained down in response, shattering the town beyond repair. He could only pray that the locals had been able to flee before the Theocrats arrived. The Theocrats clearly hadn’t been dislodged, even by the heavy shellfire. They were dug in too well to be shifted easily.

  “Order the tanks to advance,” he said. Ideally, he would have preferred to isolate the town and let it die on the vine, but he didn’t have time. “We’ll move in behind them.”

  A low roar echoed through the air as the first hovertanks advanced towards the town, their force shields deflecting a hail of bullets and plasma blasts. Pat allowed himself a moment of relief that they’d brought the tanks along—the road network was so bad that he doubted ordinary tanks could handle the trip without turning the roads into powd
er—and then watched as the tanks cruised onwards, firing burst after burst of plasma fire into the town. Building after building was engulfed in flames, brilliant surges of white fire crackling from target to target. The flames were so hot that unprotected men wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “Go,” Pat ordered.

  The marines advanced, weapons at the ready, meeting no resistance as they ran through the flames and out to the other side. Pat had half expected to see the enemy running for their lives, but instead . . . nothing. They’d all been caught up inside the town and incinerated, wiped out effortlessly. Their leaders had sacrificed them for nothing.

  Bastards, he thought.

  “Run additional security patrols through this sector,” he ordered as he reorganized his forces to resume the advance. “And keep the tanks in reserve.”

  The fighting grew more intense as the marines pressed towards the PDC. Enemy forces popped out of nowhere, firing savagely until they were killed by the marines. A handful of armored vehicles in hiding, built more for crowd control than heavy fighting, fired on the advancing tanks until they were destroyed. Both sides shelled the other relentlessly. Pat kept a silent tally of the dead and wounded, even though he knew better. Casualties weren’t something to dwell upon in the midst of battle.

  “6th Regiment is breaking through into the city itself,” Captain Haines reported. “The locals are lynching the remaining enemy soldiers and their converts.”

  Pat cursed under his breath as another hail of shells fell near his position. Of course the Theocracy would have converts. He had difficulty imagining why anyone would want to convert, but drowning men would clutch at any straws. No doubt they’d assumed the Theocracy would win the war and wanted to please their new overlords. Or perhaps they’d planned to betray the Theocracy in time. Right now, it didn’t matter.

  “Separate the converts from the POWs, but protect them from the locals,” he ordered. “Their cases can be considered after the war.”

  “The locals are insistent,” Haines said.

  “Use all necessary force to keep the converts safe,” Pat ordered.

  Haines coughed. “Sir?”

  “Those are your orders, Captain,” Pat snarled. “And you can have them in writing, if you wish.”

  He put rigid controls on his temper. A marine captain shouldn’t be questioning his orders. But then Haines was in one hell of a spot. Protecting the converts wouldn’t win the Commonwealth any friends on Hebrides. The diplomats would have a fit. But he was damned if he was allowing a lynch mob to run riot over the planet. Besides, if the converts had no reason to expect anything else, they probably wouldn’t surrender. Hebrides might be the first planet to be liberated, but it wouldn’t be the last. There was no point in making the task harder than necessary.

  “Yes, sir,” Haines said stiffly.

  Pat gritted his teeth in annoyance. Haines had a distinguished war record, but he hadn’t seen the Theocracy in action. He certainly hadn’t been attached to the marines on Cadiz or Verdean. He’d heard stories, of course, and seen the data records, yet nothing had the same impact as seeing the devastation for himself here on Hebrides. Now . . . now Haines wanted to kill every last Theocrat. Pat didn’t blame him, but his troops needed to convince the Theocrats and their converts that they could surrender without being brutally murdered.

  Although I’m damned if I know what we’re going to do with the converts, he thought as a flight of missiles roared overhead. A moment later, an icon blinked up, warning him that a supply convoy had been hit. Ship them to a penal world or transport them all the way to Ahura Mazda?

  He pushed the thought out of his mind. Both PDCs were about to come under siege. If the Theocrats refused to surrender after their final defenses had been obliterated, the PDCs would be destroyed, putting an end to the battle. The marines could worry about the aftermath when it came.

  “Bring up the reinforcements,” he ordered. “And ready the forward units for the final advance.”

  The end, Barak thought, could not be long delayed.

  His forces had fought like lions, he admitted; they’d delayed the enemy longer than he’d thought possible, given how little time they’d had to prepare for the engagement. And they’d hurt the enemy, taking out dozens of their marines along with several of their tanks and other war machines. But the effort hadn’t been enough. Now the enemy was pressing up against the PDC’s inner defense line. If they couldn’t break through, they’d use a nuclear charge to finish the job.

  And we have no sign of reinforcements, he thought. His forces were on the ropes, the handful of survivors being systematically hunted down and killed. There was no hope of anything but a quick death and a rise to paradise. We lost the moment Admiral Ashram got himself killed.

  “Ready your communications network, General,” a cold voice said. Barak looked up to see one of the black-clad outsiders. “We have a message to send.”

  “There’s no one to reply,” Barak said. The certainty of death made him flippant. What could the outsider do to him before the PDC was destroyed? “Unless you want to surrender?”

  “Ready the network,” the outsider repeated sharply. His hand dropped to the pistol at his belt. “Now.”

  Barak nodded to the communications operator, who started to tap commands into his console. The message seemed pointless. The radio signal would be heard across the planet, but who was going to listen? And the signal itself . . .

  His eyes widened in horror. It was an activation code. “What are you doing?”

  “Scorched earth,” the outsider said. He looked up. His voice rang with fanatical determination. His eyes glittered with rage. “May God defend the right.”

  The world went white.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Nuclear detonation,” Cecelia snapped. “I say again, multiple nuclear detonations!”

  William snapped out of his command chair as new icons, icons he’d never seen outside training simulations, blossomed to life on the display. Nuclear strikes, dozens of them, on a planetary surface! No one had nuked a planet-side target since the Breakaway Wars, when Earth’s surface had been blasted clean of life. Even the Theocracy had declined to nuke civilian populations . . .

  . . . until now.

  “At least fifty blasts,” Cecelia said. She sounded badly shaken. “All on or near population centers. Preliminary sensor readings suggest the blasts were highly radioactive.”

  William felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Nuclear weapons hadn’t been radioactive for centuries, ever since straight fusion warheads had entered service. But the Theocracy wouldn’t have any trouble designing weapons that produced vast clouds of radiation as well as slaughtering thousands and tearing up the landscape. Anyone who survived the blasts might well wind up wishing they hadn’t. The atrocity . . .

  He struggled to comprehend what he was seeing as the last of the blasts faded away, the enemy force shield over Lothian flickering out of existence a moment later. Both PDCs were gone, wiped out by suicide charges. If any enemy presence remained on the planet, it had gone to ground . . . although, with so much electromagnetic distortion washing through the air, the orbiting starships had no way to be sure. But perhaps it didn’t matter. He knew what would happen to any Theocrats unlucky enough to be caught by his people. Somehow, he found it hard to care.

  “Order sickbay to prepare for an immediate deployment to the surface,” William said finally. He struggled to keep his voice composed, let alone issue orders, but he had no choice. “Raise the flag. This has just become a rescue mission.”

  He forced himself to sit down as his crew hurried to carry out their orders. Rescuing the crew of an asteroid settlement or a small lunar colony was one thing, but saving the population of an entire planet? The task force had brought emergency supplies, yet they’d never dreamed they would need to bring enough supplies to save everyone. His head swam as he struggled to come to terms with what had happened. He’d loved his homeworld, even as he’d disdained its
society and disliked its leaders. And now it was effectively gone.

  There were nearly half a billion people down there, he thought numbly. He couldn’t grasp the sheer scale of the atrocity. And how many of them are left?

  Pat hit the ground instinctively as a flash of white light caused his helmet to darken automatically. Something that bright could only be a nuclear weapon. The shockwaves struck seconds later, followed by a sleet of radiation that caused emergency icons to blink up in his HUD. Anyone outside and unprotected would need medical treatment within hours or be condemned to a truly horrific death. The ground shook repeatedly, then quieted. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stand and peer towards the PDC. Now, it was shrouded in a massive mushroom cloud.

  Shit, he thought.

  “Sir!” Corporal Jack said. “The city!”

  Pat swung around and stared in horror. A mushroom cloud—a second mushroom cloud—was rising over Lothian, its sheer brooding mass hiding the horror within. He imagined, just for a second, a demonic face within the cloud, laughing at him . . . he shook his head, dismissing the thought. The offensive had come to an utterly unexpected end.

  “Sound off,” he snapped. The communications network was in disarray. Had there been a nuke buried under the spaceport? If that was the case, bringing in emergency supplies and evacuating the wounded had suddenly become much harder. “Now!”