The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX (9 page)

He hadn’t thought about them for years, not really.  It was all part of a past he’d blocked, tried to forget.  There was nothing there but pain.  But now that humanity was facing its final struggle against an eternity of tyranny, his old memories flooded back.  His last image of his sisters had been that of two little girls, lying in the ruins of their tattered mattress, shot a dozen times each.  If that was the world Gavin Stark was going to destroy, if the monsters who’d allowed people to live the way the Cogs did were to be his victims, Cain thought perhaps he should stand aside and let it all happen.  Did mankind even deserve to survive?

Cain struggled constantly with the dark side of his soul, fought hard to be a good man when all he saw around him was evil and brutality.  He knew he would have stood aside if Stark were just fighting to subjugate Earth.  He would allow the people there to fight their own battles, and to pay the price for their decades of craven compliance to those so unfit to lead them.  But Stark was after the colonies too, and Cain had sworn to defend those with his life.  He was far from confident that mankind in space would choose a different path than their forefathers had on Earth, but he knew they deserved the chance at least, either to forge a bold new path toward freedom, or to make the same mistakes again and descend into slavery.

But most of all, he was after Stark to avenge Elias Holm.  The Commandant had been a role model to Cain, an example of something he’d long doubted could exist – a truly good man.  The Corps had saved Cain from death and the squalor and misery of Earth, but it was Holm who had helped him become the man he had.  Stark would pay for taking that life.  He would pay if it was the last thing Erik Cain ever did.

Ross watched the display as another dreadnought disappeared from the enemy line.  Admiral Campbell’s surprise had been total.  The two superbattleships had come around Saturn hard, x-ray lasers blasting.  They’d taken out three of Stark’s damaged battleships in the first few minutes, before the defenders managed to come about and return fire.

Now the enemy was maneuvering to concentrate on Campbell’s ships.  Ross was countering by closing with his own vessel.  The battle was entering its final stage, a close-in knife fight to the death.  “The battleline will accelerate toward the enemy at 3g.”

“Yes, sir.”  Randall relayed the order.  A few seconds later she turned back toward Ross.  “Admiral, Celestia is Status 111.”

Ross’ head snapped around toward his display, and he focused on the reports streaming in from the stricken battleship.  Status 111 was the Confederation’s version of the Alliance Code Omega.  It meant a ship was past saving and that its total destruction was imminent.

“All personnel on Celestia are to abandon…”  He stopped abruptly as the small blue oval disappeared from his screen.  He hadn’t really expected to get through the battle without losses, but it still hurt to see a battleship with a crew of almost 1,000 blown to bits.

“All other capital ships are to continue toward the enemy, firing laser batteries full.”  He grabbed the armrests of his chair as Rhodes shook hard.  He could hear distant sounds of explosions, and the lights dimmed for a few seconds.  That was too close to the reactor, he thought.  Another one of those, and we’re out of this fight.

He felt suddenly lighter, no longer struggling under the 3g of pressure from the engines’ thrust.  He flipped on the intraship com direct to Rhodes’ bridge.  “What’s happening, Tom?”  Thomas Jacoby had been Ross’ flag captain since he’d gotten his admiral’s stars, first on the cruiser Dionysus and then on Rhodes.

“We’ve got trouble in the conduit from the reactor to the engines.  I’m afraid 1.5g is all I can give you now.”  He paused, and Ross could hear shouting in the background.  “Sir, I strongly suggest you transfer your flag.”

“C’mon, Tom, we’re not starting all that…”

“Admiral, I’m serious.  We’ve got fires out of control all through the engineering spaces.  It will be a miracle if we can keep the power on, even if we manage to maintain reactor containment.”  His voice was raw, harried.  Ross could tell he was serious.

“Run your ship, Captain.”  Ross knew Jacoby didn’t have time to waste talking to him.  “Do the best you can, Tom.  And I’ll run my flag bridge.  Right here on Rhodes.”

Ross figured he’d hear from Jacoby again in a few minutes, badgering him to take a shuttle over to one of the other battleships, but he didn’t.  The two never spoke again.  The damage control parties fighting to save Rhodes’ reactor from the fires failed in their frantic efforts, and one minute, forty-two seconds later the battleship lost containment in its fusion core.  For a few seconds, she shone like a miniature sun.  Then she was gone.

“Keep that ammunition moving.”  Callahan had set up his command post about 100 meters from the front line.  It had taken over an hour to sort out and reorganize the shattered remnants of his two battalions, but he’d managed to get a strong defense in place before the enemy finished reforming and launched a fresh attack.

He had pulled half his Marines back from the line, holding them in reserve to plug any gaps, but he’d detached all the autocannons, doubling them up along the perimeter.  The concentrated fire had shattered the last attack, and a thousand enemy dead were scattered in front of his position.  It had been a great victory, but a fleeting one that he couldn’t repeat without more ammunition.

He’d wanted to give up when his platoon was wiped out, but General Heath had reminded him he was a Marine.  And something else too.  The general made him think about whether he wanted his men to have died in a futile battle that ended in the slaughter of the rest of the forces on Columbia, or if he wanted their sacrifice to mean something.  He couldn’t bring his Marines back, but he could give their deaths meaning by helping to hold out, and then pressing on until Columbia was once again free.

“This is all we could get, sir.”  The corporal was leading a squad of men, each pair of them carrying a heavy crate full of autocannon rounds.  It looked like a lot of ammo, but Callahan knew it wasn’t, at least not at the rate his people were expending it.  “The supply depot is almost empty.”

Callahan nodded.  “Just get all that distributed along the line.”  He turned and walked back toward his reserve formations.  He suspected he was going to need them when the heavy weapons ran out of ammunition, and he wanted them ready to go.

“Major, they’re coming again.”  Lieutenant Mellas was Callahan’s new aide, a platoon leader who ended up out of a job when the new major combined three of his shattered units into one formation.  Mellas was up on the line, and Callahan could tell from the tension in his voice the new attack was a big one.

“On my way,” he snapped back to Mellas.  He flipped the com channel back to the sergeant in charge of the ammo detail.  “Get those rounds distributed.  Now.”  He turned and raced back toward the front line.  He knew the entire force was running out of ammunition, and when they did, it would be over.  The LZ would be overrun and the survivors gunned down.

He felt a rush of anger that no new waves had come to the aid of the Marines on the surface, but he knew the realities.  The advance guard had been tasked to expand the LZ, but they’d been hemmed in and pushed back instead.  Trying to bring down new forces into a pinpoint zone surrounded on all sides by the enemy was suicide.  Half the landers would get blasted before they even touched down.

General Gilson was one of the oldest sweats in the Corps.  He knew she would do anything to save the men and women on the ground.  Anything but losing twice as many Marines in a failed attempt to relieve them.  He doubted there were more than 2,000 of the original 5,000 still alive, and any relief attempt would lose more than that just trying to land.

He trotted up to the front, sliding into a deep foxhole.  There were half a dozen Marines there, including two crouched down toward the front, manning one of the heavy autocannons and firing on full auto.

The troops were focused on the advancing enemy, and they didn’t notice his rank at first.  His armor looked just like theirs, and it bore no special insignia.  An officer’s best chance to avoid becoming sniper bait was to look just like everyone else.  A major was a juicy target, and one who strutted around looking like an important officer was just asking to be picked off.

“Major, sir!”  The corporal in command turned abruptly, having just noticed Callahan’s data on his display.

“As you were, corporal.”  Callahan pushed forward through the ankle-deep mud toward the front edge of the hole.  “I’m just here to get a look.”  He peered out at the approaching enemy and gasped.

There were hundreds of troops advancing, no, more than a thousand, and it looked like there were fresh columns moving up behind them.  The second he peaked over the edge of the foxhole he knew his people were done.  The enemy was coming in massive force, far more than his Marines could defeat.  They would sweep through the LZ and overrun the entire position, and that would be the end of the first wave, and the invasion of Columbia.

He pulled his assault rifle from his back.  His people might be doomed, but there was one thing he was damned sure about.  They would sell their lives dearly.  The enemy might overwhelm the LZ and repulse the Marine invasion, but they were going to pay a heavy price to do it.

He watched the attackers approaching.  They looked just like Marines, the same as the troops on Armstrong.  They were leapfrogging forward across the ravaged battlefield, taking cover in shellholes and shattered buildings.  Half of them were firing at any time, providing cover for their advancing units.  Callahan wished his people were facing a less disciplined force, one that would just charge across the field.  But they were fighting a mirror image of themselves.

He flipped on his com.  “All reserve formations advance now.  Reinforce the forward line.”  There was no point keeping anyone back now.  His people would do most of their damage while the enemy was coming in, and he wanted every gun on the line.

He leaned forward, steadying himself and bringing his own weapon to bear.  His command didn’t have a rifle to spare.  He was about to fire when he heard the sound of approaching aircraft.  He stared at his display, but he couldn’t believe what it told him.  He leaned back and looked up in stunned silence at the massive craft swooping down from the sky.

Elizabeth Arlington stared down at the ground below.  My God, she thought, the LZ is being overrun.  “Alright squadron, we need to make this count, and we need to do it now.  It’s the last chance those Marines on the ground have.”

She pushed hard on the throttle, driving Typhoon down to 2000 meters and zipping along the rocky ground south of the battlefield.  The fast attack ship was a small vessel in a space battle, where it used its speed and maneuverability to zip around the heavier fleet units.  But it was massive and cumbersome compared to an atmospheric fighter, or even a heavy bomber.

She’d sold the attack ships as almost streamlined for atmospheric flight, but that had been an exaggeration if not an outright lie.  It had been enough at least to get her Marine allies to accept the plan.  She’d snuck the whole thing past Garret, who would have known immediately how full of shit she was.  Technically, she didn’t need his direct permission, and that would be her story.  The ships were from her task force, and she was in command.  Still, she suspected she would get quite a talking to…if she made it back that is.

There had been at least a shred of truth to her story.  The fast attack ships were easier to handle in an atmosphere than something like a battleship or a cruiser.  It was at least possible to fly the things in air, but it took everything a top pilot had and then some.  None of that mattered, though.  She knew the Marines didn’t have a chance without air support, and she couldn’t stand to watch them abandoned and left behind.

She’d watched comrades abandoned once before, and she knew she’d never forget it.  She hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye to Compton.  She’d just sat on her flagship and watched the massive First Imperium explosive seal off the warp gate, trapping half the fleet, including the man she loved, with hundreds of enemy ships.  She knew, even through the hurt and heartbreak, that there had been no choice then.  If Garret hadn’t blown the warp gate, the last of the fleet would have been obliterated, and all mankind would have been destroyed.  But there was a choice this time, or at least a chance.  And she was going to make sure those men and women on the ground got it.

She felt the ship shake hard, buffeted by air currents it was never intended to navigate, and she compensated as much as she could.  She glanced at the hull temperature readout.  It was 1100 degrees and rising.  Damn, she thought, I’m going to have to throttle back on the speed.

Her eyes were locked on her screen, and her moist palms gripped the controls.  She had her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and tied tightly in a knot behind her head.  Her neck was hot and moist with sweat, and she could feel her heart pounding in her ears.  Her ego had told her she could do this, and now she had to make good on that.

The Lightning-class attack ships carried a normal complement of 68 officers and crew, but she’d cut that down to a barely manageable eight per vessel.  She had no engineering crew, no backups of any kind.  The mission was stunningly dangerous, and she didn’t want to risk anyone needlessly.  But the lack of support staff meant any damage, even a routine malfunction could be fatal.  And the Lightnings weren’t built to withstand the rigors of atmospheric flight, so an overtaxed system could fail at any time.

She felt a twinge of guilt.  Her people were volunteers, 39 other men and women in the five ships now streaking toward the LZ.  But she didn’t fool herself.  When an admiral asked for volunteers, especially when she too was going, she knew there was tremendous pressure to step forward.  She truly wanted to be at the controls.  She was scared, certainly, but the thought of leaving more comrades behind was unthinkable to her.  She wondered if the others were as committed as she, or if they were just following their admiral out of loyalty and duty.

“Attention, attack wing Flaming Death.”  She had come up with the name, something she thought the leathernecks on the ground would appreciate.  “Spread out into attack positions.”  She hadn’t had time to make too many mods to the ships, but her engineers had managed to attach ground attack pods to the birds.  It made them even harder to fly in an atmosphere, but the cluster bombs were deadly against ground targets.

“We’re each going to hit them with one plasma torpedo.”  The attack ships’ primary weapon system was deadly in space, but she had no idea how it would perform in an atmosphere.  “Drop those in the enemy rear.  We’re not here to fry our own guys.”  She’d personally shoot the careless son of a bitch who hit the Marine positions out of carelessness.

She took a deep breath.  “Then we’ll turn once and come back low over the close in enemy concentrations and hit them with the cluster bombs.”  She nudged the throttle, bringing her ship into the lead position for the attack.  “That’s it…then we’re out of here, so make those shots count.”

She swung her ship around, angling for a group of columns marching up from the enemy rear.  “OK, gunner, let’s nail those bastards!”  She struggled to hold the ship steady, bringing it around to cross over the heaviest troop concentrations.  She held her breath, waiting for Specialist Samars to let loose the plasma torpedo.  It was a dangerous plan.  If the atmosphere proved to be too hard on the fragile containment system, the thing could blow the second it left the tube.  If that happened, Typhoon would be gone, vaporized by its own malfunctioning weapon, with nothing but a few surviving chunks left to hit the ground.

The ship shook hard as it released its deadly ordnance, and her eyes flashed to the display, watching the weapon descend toward the ground.  She let out a breath, and watched the blip move directly to the target area.

“Alright!”  The cheering along the line was deafening, and Callahan instructed his AI to reduce the volume on the unitwide com.  There was a second sun on the horizon for a few seconds, a billowing white cloud of energy and death that engulfed the enemy rear areas.

Callahan hadn’t known what to make of the massive craft that had passed overhead, but he was pretty sure now they were friendlies.  Ground pounders didn’t see the outsides of spacecraft very often, so none of his people recognized their own fast attack ships.  But they’d just vaporized hundreds, no thousands of the enemy, he thought, and that was good enough for him.

“Alright you grunts, stop watching the show and keep firing.”  The big aircraft had slammed the enemy rear areas, but there were still plenty of troops closer to his lines, enough to overrun the whole LZ, especially if his people let up their intensity, even for a few seconds.

He set the example himself, leaning toward the front of the hole and whipping his rifle around.  He had been picking targets before, but the enemy’s lead elements were getting closer now, and he switched to full auto.  He focused on a group of enemy troopers and fired, hitting at least two and sending the others scrambling for cover.

His elation at the air bombardment began to fade as he realized there were still too many enemy troops moving toward his troops.  They’d been firing as they advanced and bombarding Callahan’s positions with mortar fire.  Three of the six Marines sharing his foxhole had been hit.  One was dead and two wounded.  One of the injured Marines was still on the line, firing along with her comrades.  The other was barely conscious, and his medical AI and trauma control system were the only things keeping him alive.

“Marines, this is Admiral Arlington.”  The voice came through on his com.  He could hear stress in her voice but elation as well.  “Keep your heads down, guys.  We’re going to do another run closer in.”

Admiral Arlington, he thought with a shock.  What the hell is the task force commander doing down here?  “You heard the admiral.  Everybody down.”  He slipped back and leaned down, covering his head with his arms as he did.  He could hear the sounds of the ships approaching again, and he could only imagine what they were about to unleash on the hordes of troops out on that plain.