The Black Sheep (A Learning Experience Book 3) (9 page)

“Aye, Captain,” Yeller said.  “What about command and control satellites?”

“If they’re helping the Druavroks, take them out,” Hoshiko snapped.  “If you
think
they’re helping the Druavroks, take them out ...”

She broke off and watched as a spread of missiles obliterated a handful of platforms, one by one.  The platforms were vulnerable - a single burst of phaser fire would be enough to take them out - but there were too many of them to take them all out quickly.  She swore under her breath as a couple of platforms started firing towards the ground, then relaxed slightly as the platforms were blown apart.

“Good thing they don’t have true AI,” Wilde commented.  “They could have targeted us as well as the planet at the same time.”

“They must have bought the cheap versions,” Hoshiko agreed.  “Or drew them straight from the Tokomak.”

It made sense, she thought, although she’d have to check the records to be sure.  The Tokomak hadn't been too keen on the idea of allowing
anyone
to fire on a planet’s surface and had modified their technology to make it tricky for the platforms to engage both starships and the planet’s surface.  It did make a certain kind of sense, she knew; a single missile with an antimatter warhead, or even with a standard nuke, would do one hell of a lot of damage to the planet’s surface. 
And
the platforms were designed to defend the planet, rather than keep the population a prisoner.

“No active PDCs,” Biscoe reported.  “I’m picking up a number of military formations on the ground, but nothing that seems capable of posing a threat to anything in orbit.”

Hoshiko nodded and interfaced her mind with the computer datanet once again.  The final manned platform was spitting missiles in all directions, but it was old and outdated, ill-prepared for a full-scale attack.  She had to admit the Druavroks were stubborn; they
knew
they were going to lose and yet they were still fighting.  Maybe they thought there was no point in trying to surrender.  Wilde had been right.  The other races on Amstar wouldn't hesitate to take a brutal revenge for attempted genocide.

The ship shuddered one final time as the orbital battle came to an end.  Hoshiko checked the live feed from the other eight ships - three had taken minor damage, including
Harrington
- and then turned her attention to the planet itself.  It was definitely an
odd
world; it looked, very much, as though the Tokomak had been more interested in producing full-sized megacities, each one several times the size of the largest city on Earth, rather than settling the planet as a whole.  But there were still a large number of military formations on the surface ... and hundreds of scorch marks where alien settlements had once been.

“Target their formations from orbit and take them out,” she ordered.  They weren't too close to non-Druavrok settlements, as far as she could tell.  Besides, she had the feeling that giving the aliens a chance to find human shields would be disastrous.  Collateral damage was normally unavoidable, particularly when KEWs were dropped on targets from high overhead, but it should be kept as low as possible.  “And then try and make contact with the humans on the ground.”

She cursed under her breath as Yeller went to work.  Captain Ryman had supplied them with a whole list of contacts, humans and non-humans who were involved in fighting the Druavroks, but there was no way to know how valid his list was any longer.  It had been two weeks since he’d fled Amstar and the Druavroks were incredibly aggressive.  They might well have obliterated the resistance already.  She worked her way through the analysis from the tactical staff as the ship settled into orbit and allowed herself a sigh of relief.  There were definite signs that the battle was still underway.

“Picking up a response, Captain,” Yeller said.  “They’re demanding Captain Ryman’s codes.”

“Pass them on,” Hoshiko said.  “And then order the marines to be ready to drop.”

She wanted to go down to the planet herself, but she knew that was impossible.  The marines would have to take the lead, accompanied by Captain Ryman - and Max Kratzok, if the reporter still wanted to go.  Judging by the reports, the fighting was growing ever more intense, even as her KEWs wiped the visible formations out of existence.  The Druavroks simply didn't know how to quit. 

And they probably have more weapons than anyone else
, she thought, numbly. 
Pacifying the planet will take years
.

“They’ve sent us landing coordinates,” Yeller reported.  “Captain?”

“Forward them to the marines,” Hoshiko ordered.  She’d discussed possible steps with her officers during the voyage.  Now, they'd find out just how good their planning had actually been.  “Mr. Kratzok?  Get to the marine boat bay if you wish to join them.”

“I do, Captain,” Kratzok said.  He rose and hurried to the hatch.  “Thank you.”

Hoshiko smiled.  She rather doubted Kratzok knew what was awaiting him.  He might have fooled around in simulations, or downloaded a full sensory recording from a marine making the jump into combat, but there was no substitute for the real thing.

“Good luck,” she said.

She turned her attention back to the main display.  “Do we have any other enemy positions in the system?”

“None as yet,” Biscoe reported.  “They don’t seem to have shown much interest in the industrial nodes.”

“Odd,” Hoshiko said.  Had the Druavroks been so interested in exterminating everyone else that they’d ignored the industrial platforms?  “We’ll deal with them as soon as we can spare the marines.”

“Aye, Captain,” Biscoe said.  “We’re also picking up signals from lunar settlements.  They’re asking if we’re planning to stay.”

“Tell them yes,” Hoshiko said.  The last thing she needed was people, humans or aliens, panicking while her marines dropped into hell.  “And ask them for a sit-rep, if possible.  I need to know what’s going on.”

Chapter Eight

Chinese forces reoccupied Tibet after a bloody uprising.  The Chinese Government claims that the Tibetans came to greet their Chinese brothers after the extremists were defeated, but reports on the ground and orbital observations claim that the Chinese destroyed Lhasa and exterminated much of the population. 

-Solar News Network, Year 54

Max hadn't been
quite
sure what to expect when he'd run into the boat bay, but he definitely hadn't expected a grim-faced man shoving him into a large armoured suit.  He had no time to object before the suit sealed itself, his implants reporting that the control processors were attempting to connect to his neural link.  The moment he authorised the link, the suit seemed to fade away to a haze surrounding him, as if he was no longer wearing it.  But the icons flashing up in front of his eyes told a different story.

“I understand you’ve used combat suits before, Max,” a female voice said.  A stream of information from his implants identified the speaker as Lieutenant Hilde Bergstrom.  She was standing far too close to him, wrapped in another armoured suit.  “Have you stayed in practice?”

“I haven’t used one since my days in the Orbital Guard,” Max said.  He’d never taken enthusiastically to military service, although it was a requirement for
any
form of advancement on his asteroid.  “This suit’s a little more advanced than the suits we wore during the war.”

“Understood,” Hilde said.  “I’m slaving your suit to mine, for the moment.  I don’t want you trying to control your combat jump.  If something happens to me” -
if I get blown into atoms
, Max translated silently - “you’ll be passed to another marine.  You won’t have full control over the suit until we land on the ground.”

“I understand,” Max said.  “And once we’re down?”

“Follow my lead,” Hilde said.  “We’re not going to try slotting you into our order of battle, but we may need you to plug any holes.  If so, your suit will be slaved to us once again and you’ll be a helpless bystander until the battle comes to an end.”

Max swallowed.  In hindsight, he suspected he should have thought more carefully before agreeing to embed with the marines, even though he’d get some great footage of the Battle of Amstar, up close and personal.  The idea of being trapped inside the suit as it charged enemy fire on its own was terrifying ... but there was no point in trying to change his mind now, not when he’d already committed himself.  He hastily set his implants to calming mode as Hilde turned to lead him towards the hatch, then followed her down the corridor.  Twenty-two armoured forms were waiting for them.  If his suit hadn't automatically supplied names and faces, he wouldn't have been able to tell them apart.

“Slave mode ... active,” Hilde said.  “Sorry.”

The suit walked forward.  Max tried to send a query into its control processors, but there was no response.  He was a helpless passenger now.  Gritting his teeth, he braced himself as the hatch opened, revealing the inky darkness of space.  Panic flared at the back of his mind as a force field picked up the suit and shoved it hard towards the planet below.  More icons flashed up in front of him, warning of incoming fire from the ground, as the suit plunged into formation with the remainder of the marines.  Max squeezed his eyes shut as the planet grew larger and larger in front of him, convinced - at a very basic level - that he was going to slam into the ground.  He knew it was safe - there were thousands of people who jumped from orbit every year - but his mind refused to believe it.  How many of the orbital jumpers jumped straight into the teeth of enemy fire?

“This is fun,” Hilde said.  If she was trying to be reassuring, she wasn't doing a very good job of it.  “Just you wait until we hit the atmosphere!”

Max checked his implants.  Only a minute or two had gone by since they’d been launched from the ship, even though it felt like hours.  He opened his eyes, then closed them again as he saw the planet looming up in front of him.  It was so close he felt as if he could reach out and touch it ...

... The suit rocked, violently, as it struck the upper edge of the atmosphere.  Max was aware, dimly aware, of the suit reconfiguring itself for a faster descent, even though his mind was screaming for the suit to slow down.  He knew it made sense to descend as quickly as possible - the enemy only needed one hit to wipe him and his suit out of existence - and yet it was hard to convince himself that it was true.  The suit rocked again and again, striking patches of turbulence in the atmosphere ... or, perhaps, dodging bursts of fire from the ground.  Max kept his eyes tightly closed as the shaking grew worse.  He didn't want to know.

“They’re taking pot-shots at us,” Hilde commented.  “Don’t worry.  They’re not very good shots.”

Max hated her in that moment, hated her for her casual dismissal of danger.  But then, she would have gone though a thousand simulated combat drops before she’d ever been allowed to take a real suit down to the planet’s surface. 
He’d
only ever had a handful of lessons.  No one had seriously expected the Orbital Guard to have to make a combat drop, not when there were teleporters they could use to get down to Earth or Mars if necessary.  But any Galactic world knew to use jammers to prevent people beaming up or down at will.

The suit rocked again, spinning madly through the air.  Max opened his eyes and wished, immediately, that he hadn't.  There was a city below, wrapped in smoke and fire, coming towards him at terrifying speed.  Brilliant flashes of light - his implants identified them as plasma weapons - pulsed in all directions, some of them flashing up towards the marines.  It was impossible to tell just what was going on, but it looked like the worst of Stalingrad, of Fallujah, of Paris during the Intifada.  The suit’s sensors were drawing information from thousands of tactical support drones deployed by the marines, yet it was hard to tell who was on what side.  Was there even a united front against the Druavroks or were there hundreds of small groups, fighting as best as they could?

“Prepare for landing,” Hilde said, calmly.  “Your suit will go free the moment you touch down, Max.  Get down and stay down unless you have to fight.”

Max nodded wordlessly, then braced himself as the ground came up and hit him, the suit’s antigravity compensators coming online bare seconds before he slammed into the surface and died.  His head spun; he ducked down as quickly as he could, trying to gather himself as the marines snapped into action.  Bolts of plasma fire flashed over his head as the Druavroks tried to muster a counterattack; clearly, they hadn’t expected to face a new threat from high overhead.  But they had to know their ships and orbiting defences had been defeated, didn't they?  Unless their high command believed the groundpounders shouldn't know more than the bare minimum at all times ...

He looked up, careful to stay low.  The city was strange, a bizarre mixture of styles from a hundred different worlds.  A soaring skyscraper, pockmarked with bullet holes, co-existed with a building that looked like an anthill; a blocky building, looking like something built out of brightly-coloured children’s bricks, sat next to a black conical building that pointed towards the sky.  More and more icons flashed up in front of him as he looked from side to side, warning of everything from possible snipers to heavy weapons emplacements.  The drones were building up a picture of the surrounding city, but they were being targeted by enemy countermeasures.

“The enemy are redeploying troops to face us,” Hilde told him.  She sounded remarkably calm, even though marines were forbidden to use any form of calming software while they were on combat duty.  “They’re sweeping the sector with drone-killing tech.”

Max swallowed.  Drones - remote sensors so tiny the human eye couldn't hope to see them - had been the Solar Union’s ace in the hole since Steve Stuart had captured the very first Galactic starship.  No Earth-based nation could oppose the Solar Union when its leaders, the men who would normally be safe from harm, could be hunted down and targeted by the drones; no secret could be kept when the drones were everywhere, drawing in so much intelligence that the analysts were overloaded.  There was no such thing as the Fog of War when GalTech was involved.  But the Galactics knew how to counter the drones ...

“The Fog of War is drawing in,” he mumbled.

“A nice turn of phrase,” Hilde said.  Her voice was so flat that it was impossible to tell if she was being sarcastic.  “I trust you’ll put that in the reports?”

“Something like that,” Max said.  More alerts flickered up in front of him as the enemy formed up, just out of visual range.  Smoke and fog was drifting across the battlefield, making it harder to see anything with the suit’s visual sensors.  Thankfully, the other sensors could peer through the smog as though it wasn't there.  “Do you want me to make you sound like Combat Marie or Combat Barbie?”

“That depends,” Hilde said.  For the first time, she sounded a little irked.  Baby-sitting duty wasn't what she'd signed up for.  “Would you rather have your testicles cut off with a rusty knife or be force-fed to the ravenous beasts of Scott?”

“I’ll just make you sound like a marine,” Max said.  He wondered, absently, what Hilde had done to be lumbered with the task of riding herd on him.  “Will that be safe?”

“As long as you don’t make me look like Combat Barbie,” Hilde said.  “Do you know how many idiots we had trying to pick fights with us after
that
movie came out?”

Max smirked in genuine amusement.  Marie and Barbie had been a recruiting movie produced twenty years ago, following the adventures of two female marines: Marie and Barbie.  Every marine he’d met had insisted, loudly, that it was either an unfunny comedy or a particularly obnoxious piece of enemy propaganda, intended to damage the reputation of the Solar Marines.  They’d certainly made it clear that the movie bore as much resemblance to reality as statements from the governments on Earth.  And yet, it still enjoyed a cult following. 

Probably because both of them were genuine achievers
, he thought.  No one cared about beauty in the Solar Union - cosmetic surgery could turn an ugly man into a handsome stud or a fat girl into a goddess - but competence? 
That
was a genuine turn-on. 
And they didn't take their roles too seriously either
.

He paused as new alerts flashed through the implants, then looked up.  The wind was picking up, blowing away the smoke ... and revealing a line of enemy soldiers on the far side of the square.  They looked like miniature dinosaurs, he thought; their clawed hands gripped weapons as their dark insect-like eyes peered at the human soldiers.  Most of them were green, but a handful were yellow or purple.  It didn't look as though the colouring served any natural purpose, he thought; it certainly wouldn't be very effective camouflage.

Humans aren't naturally camouflaged either
, he thought, morbidly. 
We had to invent our own camouflage
.

“Stand at the ready,” a marine said.  “Let them make the first move.”

Max crept forward, bringing the suit’s weapons online.  It had been years since he’d worn a suit during exercises - he’d never gone to war - but he couldn't just do nothing.  Hilde said nothing as he slipped up beside her; Max swallowed nervously as he stared at the aliens, watching the humans with expressionless scaly faces.  But then, they were
alien
.  For all he knew, they were working themselves up into a frenzy.  His implants, for once, had no answers.  There was almost nothing on the Druavroks within their files.

And there’s no way you can generalise with aliens
, he reminded himself.  Aliens were
not
human, something he’d been told time and time again. 
One race may fart in public as a sign of welcome, but another might take it as a declaration of war
.

The aliens moved, suddenly; they lunged forward, firing as they came.  It didn't look as though they were bothering to target the humans, but they were firing so many bursts of plasma fire in the right general direction that they were bound to hit
something
.  The Major barked a command and the marines opened fire in return, their plasma cannons tearing great gouts out of the alien formation.  Max watched in horror as the alien line staggered, then kept charging forward even as dozens died to a single plasma bolt.  How could
anyone
keep coming under such weight of fire?  He recoiled, then lifted his own weapons and opened fire himself.  And yet the aliens kept coming ...