Hellfire: Mechanized Warfare on a Galactic Scale (Metal Legion Book 3)

by CH Gideon

  The primary emitter melted the rock and broke it into smaller boulders, which were then individually superheated by secondary emitters until the stone was liquefied. At that point, it flowed down the aggressively-angled tunnel, which pitched upward at just under twelve degrees. When the system was operating at full efficiency, over thirty cubic meters of molten stone flowed from the tunnel each minute. There was simply no better way, using Terran technology, to drill such lengthy passages into solid stone.

  This particular tunnel measured two meters in diameter, although at the mouth, it was nearly twenty meters from top to bottom due to erosion from the passing, molten stone. The tunnel already stretched nearly thirty-five kilometers into the planet’s crust and, at last estimate, was less than a kilometer from the end of the dig. During the first few kilometers of digging, there had been some fear that they would miss the target or, even worse, that there was nothing awaiting them in the subterranean target zone. But after five kilometers of seemingly natural stone had been cleared away, the composition of the rock wall became markedly different and clearly unnatural. At that point, they confirmed that the target information had been correct.

  Huge excavators dug troughs that diverted the molten stone down the Gash and away from the dig site. While the system was digging, a team of workers had erected a giant set of scaffolding to create a ramp leading from the Gash’s floor to the tunnel mouth. The scaffolding was ninety percent complete, but it could not be finished until the molten rock ceased to flow.

  Podsy assisted Styles in directing the drill team to install the replacement primary emitter, which took surprisingly little time. The emitter assembly was open and easy to access for maintenance, with the old emitter having already been pulled. Replacing the system’s beating heart took less than thirty minutes from start to finish, and soon the primary emitter was ready to fire. Throughout the replacement process, the secondary emitters had continued pulsing up the tunnel, keeping the temperature in the passage high enough for the molten stone to flow out onto the Gash’s floor.

  “Emitter diagnostics are green across the board,” reported Mrs. Baldwin, the drill team leader. “We’re ready to resume, Mr. Styles.”

  “Do it,” Styles urged, and Podsy watched with no small measure of appreciation as the powerful laser system whined to life. The thin air around his suit crackled and popped as the primary emitter’s invisible beams stabbed into the rock wall, each pulse accompanied by a perceptible thrum that faintly vibrated the ground beneath Podsy’s feet.

  Perfectly attenuated and aimed, the beam pulses struck the target patches of rock up the tunnel with surgical precision. Despite the secondary lasers’ efforts, some of the flowing rock had cooled and slowed its descent through the tunnel during the primary emitter’s downtime, but that rock was re-melted by the primary beam as it cleared the tunnel while continuing its work.

  After a few minutes of the primary’s operation, blobs of molten rock began to burp out of the tunnel. Burps grew into short-lived gushes, which in turn lengthened in duration until a continuous stream of molten rock once again flowed from the tunnel’s two-meter-wide, twenty-meter-tall mouth forty meters above the Gash’s floor.

  “Crank it up, Baldwin,” Styles urged. “The rangefinders show we’ve only got another five hundred meters of rock before we reach our objective.”

  “You heard the man,” Baldwin barked. “Let’s knock it out!”

  The machine’s whine grew to a steady roar, and the pulses burned so frequently that Podsy was unable to distinguish the individual bursts from a continuous beam of energy. The flow of rock was deceptively consistent, if anything slowing as the drill bored farther into the Brick’s skin. But that was a simple matter of physics; it would take nearly an hour for the rock from the farthest end of the tunnel to flow down into the Gash.

  Right on schedule, an hour after the drill had resumed its work, the flow of molten rock sharply increased. The monitoring equipment showed twenty-five cubic meters of material flowing out of the tunnel every minute, and the excavation’s support teams began working furiously to keep that molten rock flowing away from the tunnel with smaller plasma burners to further liquefy the waste material, and remote-operated mini-dozers to continually build up berms of slowly-solidifying rock that kept the channels flowing down the Gash and away from the dig site.

  It was a smooth operation. Men and women like this were largely responsible for the Terran Republic’s survival after the wormhole gates collapsed. Their fierce determination and single-minded focus on their craft, even with enemy warships circling overhead, was enough to make him proud to know he was their fellow Terran.

  Three hours of steady digging, and finally the primary emitter’s near-continuous pulses began to slow until they were firing no more than twice per second.

  “The far wall gave out,” Baldwin declared. “We’ve achieved penetration into a cavern of some kind.”

  “Good job, Mrs. Baldwin,” Styles congratulated her. “Sergeant Major Trapper, bring our rides.”

  “The tunnel won’t be safe to traverse for another twenty hours,” Baldwin warned, “and that’s assuming you brought along heat-resistant gear.”

  “We won’t be hoofing it, Mrs. Baldwin,” Styles assured her before turning to Podsy and switching to a secure suit-to-suit link. “The general gave orders that you were to accompany the insertion team.”

  Podsy’s brows rose in surprise. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “You can verify the orders,” Styles handed Podsy a hardened slate, and sure enough, Podsy found the general’s orders that he was to accompany Chief Styles and a hand-picked quad of Trapper’s best people. “The general must like you,” Styles said with open amusement.

  Podsy grinned. “To send me thirty-five klicks down a hot tunnel? It might not be the best thing to be on his good side. I think I gave him cover to do what he wanted to do all along, which was come down here and dig his heels in against the enemy. I don’t think Colonel Li appreciated it. That sounds like two strikes.”

  “For every friend made, an acquired enemy,” Styles snickered. “He’s a big boy. He’ll get over it.”

  “I hope so,” Podsy said sincerely as Sergeant Major Trapper’s people drove an APC down to the dig site. The APC was far too large to fit into the tunnel, but when its rear door opened Podsy was unable to resist a smile from spreading across his face.

  Six identical vehicles appeared—honest-to-God motorcycles, albeit heavily-modified ones.

  “Graphene-reinforced tires and a shielded undercarriage will protect them from the occasional brush with liquid rock.” Styles chuckled as Podsy moved to inspect the sleek low-profile vehicles, which featured flat cone-shaped windshields that stretched back, “and heat-resistant two-piece containment pods that will protect us from the heat while we ride. The capacitors are good for twenty hours of continuous max-output operation, and these things are capable of two hundred kph at full throttle.”

  “These things must cost more than I’d make in a lifetime,” Podsy said in unvarnished awe, sliding his gloved hand over one of the bikes’ sleek chassis as Trapper’s people produced the second part of the bikes’ containment pods, to be installed after a rider mounted the bike.

  “It’s a safe bet,” Styles agreed as Trapper and his four hand-picked men appeared. Armed to the teeth, they stood in stark contrast to Styles, who checked a pack full of comm and data-processing gear that rested inside the APC, but it was clear from his dress and pose that Trapper would not be accompanying them up the tunnel. “The crew should have the tunnel cleared of molten debris in the next hour and a half, and the ramp should be done about fifteen minutes after that.

  The sergeant major gestured to Podsy’s sidearm. “I’d recommend a little more weight, Lieutenant.” One of Trapper’s men retrieved a rifle from the APC and handed it to Podsednik.

  Podsy nodded, accepting the weapon before checking it under the watchful eye of Sergeant Major Trapper. What would have taken a Pound
er four-and-a-half seconds took Podsy seven, but when he was finished he saw a satisfied smirk on Trapper’s face through the other man’s visor.

  “The rust comes off with a little practice,” Trapper told him.

  Just under two hours later, with the flow of molten rock now a trickle and the ramp finished, two of Trapper’s men took point while Styles and Podsy assumed the third and fourth slots in the six-man-formation, which was brought up by the third and fourth of Trapper’s men. The bikes surged up the blistering perfectly-cylindrical tunnel in a race to retrieve whatever it was they had come for.

  Which, as far as Podsy was concerned, was still a complete mystery.

  15

  Shots Fired

  “Shots fired!” the Red Hare’s Sensor operator reported in a raised but steady voice. “Finjou warships have engaged the Dietrich Bonhoeffer with direct energy weapons.”

  Jenkins’ eyes snapped up to the tactical display, which showed three Finjou warships in a classic offset-triad formation. Their direct energy weapons were high-powered lasers, and they were stabbing into the Bonhoeffer’s robust armor as the Metal Legion flagship returned fire with railguns and a swarm of missiles.

  The Red Hare’s status screen, a three-dimensional image of the warship set beneath the main tactical viewer, suddenly flared to life. Its forward armor began flashing yellow rather than its previous serene pale-blue.

  “Two direct hits, Captain,” Red Hare’s Damage Control reported as the flashing yellow stabilized into solid yellow. “Forward armor is holding; moving replacement panels into position.”

  Jenkins’ brows rose. Captain Guan noticed his surprise. “This ship features two armor-compensation systems, Colonel,” the ruddy-faced officer explained. “The first is a standard emergency system that floods the damaged armor compartments with mimetic gel. The second is more proactive and allows us to replace individual panels, which are nearly all of a modular design.”

  As he spoke, a holo-image of what looked like two crab-shaped drones appeared on a magnified view of the Red Hare’s forward hull. Each drone carried a two-meter-thick panel of composite armor, which was the best defensive system presently available to the Terran Republic. The crab-drones replaced two of the worst-damaged panels on the Red Hare’s armored prow. The old panels were ejected into the void less than a second before the new panels were slotted in place and secured via spring-bolts.

  “Impressive.” Jenkins nodded approvingly. “More gifts from the Vorr?” he asked pointedly.

  “No.” Guan chuckled, stroking his beard haughtily. “These are the work of Terra Han’s finest engineers. They are prototypes, of course,” he added with a mischievous grin, “and must undergo rigorous testing before my world presents them to the Terran Fleet.”

  Jenkins nodded in complete understanding. The more he learned about Terra Han, the more concerned he became about its standoffishness when it came to the rest of the Terran Republic.

  “Time to effective firing range on Talon Four?” Guan asked languidly, referring to the lone Finjou warship which had flanked out for one-on-one combat with the Red Hare.

  “On our current trajectory,” Tactical replied, “Red Hare will not achieve an effective firing solution, Captain.”

  “Most unfortunate,” Captain Guan said with patently false concern, relishing the moment. The men and women around the CAC leaned imperceptibly into their workstations in eager anticipation. “Then we have no choice but to improvise. Tactical, you are authorized to deploy the Starburst system. Helm, cease braking thrust and come about in Starburst maneuver.”

  “Starburst maneuver, aye,” acknowledged the neural-linked pilot of the ship, and the warship gently spun around them. The CAC was situated almost precisely at the ship’s center, which made the apparent rotational forces much less than those closer to the outer hull. The severity of the maneuver was still enough to give Jenkins a brief bout of vertigo.

  “Starburst deploying,” Tactical acknowledged with gusto as soon as the ship had reoriented, and the Red Hare’s holoimage underwent a radical change to its stern section. Twelve huge sections of the hull folded outward like the petals of a flower unfurling to greet the morning sun, and a dozen distinct launch tubes suddenly flared into being behind those panels. “Starburst system online, Captain,” reported Tactical. “Talon Four targeted. Awaiting firing order.”

  Captain Guan replied with a heavy sigh as he assumed his command chair, “Full salvo. Fire.”

  “Full salvo, aye,” acknowledged Tactical, and the dozen previously-hidden launch tubes flickered green as giant missiles appeared within them. “Firing!”

  As one, the twelve missiles fell away from the ship, seeming to drift outward in a perfect circle before their thrusters ignited and they burned toward the lone Talon-class warship that had fired on the Red Hare.

  The missiles surged forward as one, moving faster than any similar Terran platform with which Jenkins was familiar could have. The enemy warship, Talon Four, opened fire and scrubbed two of the twelve missiles with precise laser strikes.

  Captain Guan’s air of haughty disdain seemed to grow as the missiles devoured the void between them and their target. Acknowledging the threat, the Finjou warship adjusted posture to evasive and lashed out with another pair of strikes, which tore two more missiles from the void.

  “Eight platforms still on target,” reported Tactical. “Entering optimal firing range.”

  “Fire when ready,” Guan intoned, and the eight remaining missiles suddenly flew apart in a shower of new signals. Twenty smaller warheads tore loose from each larger missile’s exploded chassis, so instead of eight targets to evade, the enemy warship now had a hundred and sixty to contend with.

  Forty of those smaller missiles flashed before disappearing from the board, and Jenkins suspected he knew what had just happened.

  “Forty beams,” reported Tactical with a note of satisfaction, “thirty-one strikes. Enemy drive system is fluctuating. Firing!”

  Talon Four’s drive system failed for what would likely have been less than two seconds, but that brief window was all it took the Red Hare’s remaining ‘Starburst’ of one hundred and twenty fusion-powered laser missiles to reach the target, stabbing into the vessel in perfect unity.

  The enemy ship’s reactor failed, and the vessel exploded in a rapidly-expanding cloud of glittering debris. Less than twenty percent of the original vessel remained intact after its death throes, and that hunk of glowing material tumbled end-over-end against the starry backdrop of interplanetary space.

  “Talon Four neutralized,” Tactical reported.

  Jenkins knew that fusion-powered missiles were extremely expensive. That the Red Hare had been outfitted with them and her captain had deployed them as weapons of first resort was yet another indication that Jenkins had done far better in his negotiations with Chairman Kong than he had initially surmised.

  “Remaining Finjou warships are repositioning,” Tactical reported with relish. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer is taking advantage with missile fire. Time to Bonhoeffer weapons impact: two minutes.”

  “The hunters fear they have become the hunted,” Guan declared in a cold voice. “They have superior range and speed, but we have superior armor and, to their mind, superior firepower.”

  Jenkins took that last bit to suggest that their supply of laser warheads was limited, but the Red Hare’s arrival on the field had been expertly conducted by its captain. Commanding an undocumented ship that wielded overwhelming firepower during its first attack, Captain Guan had infected the enemy with one of the most dangerous forces known to any battlefield: doubt.

  With doubt, the enemy ceded initiative. With initiative, the aggressor could turn the tide of battle.

  Battles were won in the preparation, and part of that preparation was understanding the enemy’s capabilities. It was stupid to charge into a coin-flip situation, as well as potentially deadly.

  Captain Guan had just erased the enemy’s confidence with a single man
euver, knocking them off the balls of their feet and putting them back on their heels.

  And as the Red Hare came about to resume its deceleration on approach to the Brick, Jenkins’ appreciation for the man’s skill and field vision grew a full measure.

  The Bonhoeffer’s missile swarm surged toward the trio of Finjou warships, which had adjusted their postures to avoid a similar fate to that of their fallen comrade. They sniped two-thirds of the Terran missiles from the void with expert counter-fire, but the Bonhoeffer’s CO proved himself every bit the tactical equal of Captain Guan as his missile wave slammed into the lightly-armored Finjou ships.

  All three of the enemy warships were damaged, but two resumed their previous maneuvering while the third lagged behind its fellows. The Bonhoeffer’s six capital-grade railguns, its most potent kinetic weapons systems, spat bolts of hypervelocity tungsten at the lagging warship, which would have easily avoided the relatively sluggish bolts had its engines been online.

  Terran capital-grade railguns were capable of accelerating their projectiles through the void at speeds up to 0.03c, making them terrifyingly effective. With potential delivered force equal to a megaton per strike, the Bonhoeffer’s railguns were the most advanced long-range systems in the TAF’s arsenal. Only the Republican-class mass drivers were more devastating at ranges beyond those at which missiles could effectively engage.

  Half of the Bonhoeffer’s railgun bolts missed, streaking off into the void where they would cool, darken, and silently continue their journey across the cosmos until they struck something or, more likely, until the universe suffered its own inevitable heat death. But the rest stabbed into the damaged warship and authored explosions up and down its hull. Those explosions seemed to cease after a few seconds, but eventually life pods streamed from its hull and the ship’s reactor went critical, likely due to intentional overload, scuttling the ship once it was deemed unsalvageable.