"Our archers are so numerous," said the envoy, "that the flight of their arrows darkens the Sun."
"So much the better," replied Leonidas, "for we shall fight them in the shade."—Simonides
Jacob Huff was lying back, "Bonita" astride him, playing with him and with herself. "I love how you feel inside me . . ." she was moaning. It had been trouble justifying a civilian escorting him to Jump Station Three, but a little abuse of the system had been worth it for the results. Besides, the shuttle had to lift anyway, full or not.
Everyone they met guessed at once why she was along. And they were wrong. I think I'm falling in love with her, he admitted. He was neither the only one nor the first to get involved with a native. Not even the first in this conflict. It was still a shock to experience it.
He shook, close to orgasm, and grabbed her breasts, trying to pull her down.
His comm sounded a general alarm, destroying the mood. "Shit!" he snarled, trying to untangle. Bonita cursed also, but held him in place with her thighs. "I've got to go," he protested, pushing her. He rose, reached his comm and was about to reply when she said, "Jacob?"
He turned to her, just in time to feel the thrust into his throat. He thought at first it was a weapon, then his eyes saw her hand draw back and repeat the blow to his solar plexus. Fingers! My God, she was inhumanly strong! As he tried to breathe, she shoved him effortlessly against the wall. Her long legs moved elegantly, trapped him and a hand clamped on his throat. He tried to wrestle, but her other hand jabbed into his left shoulder, immobilizing the arm. She grabbed his right arm, twisted and held it. He was starting to see black splotches swimming in front of his eyes and knew finally that she was killing him. "Why?" he strangled out, almost inaudibly.
She leaned closer and whispered, "Because you want to destroy my home."
Her eyes were still deep and beautiful.
"Now," Naumann ordered. He had retreated to a bunker behind the ridge on Torpenhow Hill, but still within easy vehicle reach of the front. A command car waited nearby, engine idle. The battle staff burst into furious activity, coding and transmitting. There came the muffled whump! of artillery and the sound of people and equipment moving through the trees. But the unheard aspects were at least as important.
Drifting far overhead, in the total silence and serenity of orbit, was one of many intelligence satellites. This one was of UN origin, but there were others of local manufacture, recoded and in use to betray their owners. IS3-17, as it was known, was providing data on the firebase and its perimeter. It showed the lazy flow of the river, traffic on the roads and a few anomalies that would be investigated by armed reconnaissance teams. A well-placed charge punched through its casing, shattered the delicate instruments inside and damaged its orbit. Within seconds, others flashed into death. Farther out, a manned relay station had already been breached. The crew had hurried into vacsuits as a second charge damaged its solar array. More charges demolished the antennas. It would be a struggle to stay alive and relaying data suddenly became irrelevant to them. Even had they still been functional, they would have seen a mass of sheer noise from sophisticated interference and hacking. Throughout the Halo, various craft and stations were under attack
So far, the pattern was not obvious, for there were decoys and feints along with the more harmful assaults. All attention was focused on the disruption and the UN officers reacted to it as best they could. None had yet deduced that the attack was focused on communication and control paths.
Nor was anyone making the observation that the majority of the enemy was located on the planet, not out in the depths of interplanetary space. So far, this had been fought as a technological war, with the ground troops supported by massive artillery, air power and orbital strikes, all controlled from satellite and space-based assets.
Below on Grainne, along the Drifting River, several dikes rumbled as deeply placed charges damaged the structure. Previously compacted dirt, now loosened, collapsed and was swept away by the current. The berms heeled over into the water, slumping until waves spilled over the top. Trickles became streams, then raging torrents.
The artillery shells had been launched precisely; high angle for the first shot, sequentially decreasing charges and angles for the subsequent ones. There were few tubes, but they tossed a huge salvo upward in a few seconds.
Three vertols lifted out of the hills. They'd been hidden in caves, and slipped out of the trees unseen for now. Accelerating brutally, they angled toward the beginning carnage. One of the three was actually a cargo lifter with hastily improvised launch racks and munitions. It dragged slightly behind the other two, engines straining. It dropped lower for cover as the two Hatchets rose for tactical advantage.
"What the hell?" The UN satellite commo tech jerked upright from his slouch. The data on-screen made no sense. He shoved his coffee and food aside and began pulling data.
"What do you have, Will?" Colonel Upper Grade Andropos asked from across the aisle as he snatched a headset and comm to get into the loop.
"Nothing," Will answered. "Something's screwed up. Give me a few moments."
"What's nothing?" Andropos probed again.
"Just vej and fucking wait, okay? This doesn't make sense."
A disciplined soldier would have reported the inconsistency immediately. A disciplined soldier would not have spoken to an officer in that fashion. But the commo tech was very protective of what he considered proprietary information. It was seconds later when he finally and reluctantly admitted his findings.
"I've lost satellite feed, that's all. Gotta be something fucked up somewhere."
Andropos spun and asked, "All the feeds?" He punched through channels and confirmed that as correct.
"Yeah. Damn piece of shit system," Will groused.
The ground rumbled and shook slightly. There was the sound of distant thunder and a flicker of power.
"They've killed the satellites!" Andropos shouted, suddenly aware of the danger.
"It's just a system glitch, okay?" Will replied, turning. "I'll fix the fucking thing if you just back the fuck off!"
A salvo of shells landed within milliseconds of each other. The concussions from the explosions shattered equipment, slapped the technicians into the sides of the vehicle and destroyed gear. There came the howl of low-flying aircraft and the rattle of small arms.
Andropos tried to access tactical data, map data, any kind of data. His technological tools had been obliterated and his command technology had taken a dive almost five hundred years backward, to when line-of-sight radios and observers provided intelligence. He had no observers in place and a garbled roar came through his speakers. He was effectively blind. A second salvo slammed into the ground and he rode the shock wave, unable to regain his feet. He waited impatiently for the shakes to stop, then struggled upright. A small but close explosion tore the door off the hinges and heavy bootsteps clunked through.
"FREEHOLD MILITARY FORCES. SURRENDER OR DIE!"
Up on the ridge, the snipers and support weapon crews unloaded ordnance at a furious rate. Their targets were across the river, but were still within range. The snipers were focusing on crews for the weapons below, the hardened projectiles from their long, heavy fifteen millimeter rifles punching through bodies and armor and destroying gear. The shooters had literally been buried alive over the past three days, scanty rations at hand, lying silently in carefully dug positions or where necessary, camouflaged on the surface and waiting in their own filth, barely breathing. The strain would have been visible on their faces, were anyone close enough to see. It did not affect their marksmanship. Every time a UN soldier tried to mount a piece of equipment, that soldier died. The machinegun and missile crews jumped into preplanned position and aimed at only the few crewed vehicles and massed troops. Mortar crews sighted in on defiladed positions. To the south, Blazer teams crept forward from the river and the trees.
The Combat Air Control team called coordinates to the two Hatchets and scouts drew further artillery down on selected equipment. Their first priority was the UN armor. No armor could stand against modern firepower, but it was virtually unstoppable by lightly armed civilians. Tanks were great tools of oppression. Also a threat were the particle beam guns that could claw artillery shells from the sky. They could not be allowed to start shooting.
The cargo lifter dropped into the melee and furious supporting fire stirred the ground around it. Rob brought his Hatchet down in a twisting, rolling dive and chewed the area around it to plowed mud, every shell in a ten-meter-wide band, ten meters out from the vertol. He pulled into an Immelman and dusted an antiaircraft crew as he powered away. The fire lifted as the aircraft did, leaving more Blazers and Mobile Assault troops behind. Peeling off in twos and threes, they got behind the enemy and cut them down. A handful of lunatics drove combat buggies across the bottom of the ridge Kendra and the other infantry were to hold. Their light vehicles were loaded with deployable mines that spread across the ground to make an additional obstacle. Kendra and her unit had already set several thousand kilograms of explosives in the trees.
The UN headquarters was in utter disarray. All feeds were down and all wavelengths jammed so even coded and scrambled signals were garbled. There were fragmentary reports from nearby observers, but the reports did not make sense.
General Meyer, the UN 7th Division commander, spent several minutes assembling marginal data into some semblance of order and by then it was too late. He concluded it was an attack, but surely the rebels didn't have enough force to take his divisional position?
"Where the hell is that water coming from?" he demanded.
"The levees upriver have been destroyed, General," an operator told him, drawing in data.
"That's ridiculous," he objected. Or was it? Higher ground was to the east and the water couldn't rise fast enough to be a credible threat. And there were regular patrols through the bluffs. There was no way the enemy had more than a squad or two of observers up there.
"Have all sensitive equipment moved above the flood line. Then come back for everything else. Send three platoons up to Beta Five, and Seventh Squadron. That should hold against any rebel harassment. Send out an extra sweep of this area—" he indicated on the map "—and double all perimeter watches until we get the feed back. Looks like they're trying to scare us. We're going to get a bit of excitement," he concluded.
"Two Sentinels orbiting to the south," someone reported.
"That's odd. Why would the Jefferson AO be in our airspace?"
"Don't know. They're heading this way, though," was the shrugged response.
"Ask them for a data dump and have them wait. We might need the air support." The Sentinel was not an ideal close-support platform, but it would do.
"Change targets, change targets," Naumann ordered. There had been minimal casualties so far, but that was about to change. His command vehicle was loaded and he hopped in. Strapping down, he plugged into the comm and ordered his driver to advance.
The UN was retreating above the high-water line and his support weapons would hit from the south. There was no retreat north, with the river arcing in a huge bend and now flooding, which left the bluffs to the east, unless they simply rolled over him. They could, and he wouldn't be able to stop them. Hopefully, it would not occur to them as possible.
Cowboy landed in a hurry, unstrapped and sprinted to the waiting UN Guardian, nodding at the replacement pilot for the cargo lifter. The Guardian was not as well armed as a Hatchet, but it had excellent flight characteristics. And it was what was available. The Blazers already had it idling for him and set the stolen UN IFF transponder. "Coded," the sergeant in charge advised him as she saluted with a grin and sprinted for the cargo craft.
Eight Guardians had been captured intact and flight capable, with munitions for ground support already loaded. Some of the instruments were out—victims of smash-and-replace programming to override security protocols. He bypassed as much as possible, did a quick battlefield check and lifted. Rob McKay was orbiting waiting, and he joined him. The rest of their merry band was aloft in moments and they headed north, low and slow. The two "Sentinels" were simply stolen IFF transponders mounted on Hatchets. Had anyone bothered to look beyond the signal, they would have noticed that the flight characteristics were wrong. Rob and his wing had been sweating about that, but Naumann had been correct again; the enemy was generally incapable of thinking beyond the expected. It would be almost impossible for any UN automatic system to target them now. Manual weapons, of course, were still a threat.
The artillery salvo that hit near UNHQ was larger, if less precise and uniform than the initial shoot. The Freehold tubes had been joined by captured UN pieces and some undriveable but shootable armor. More than three hundred shells dropped howling from the stratosphere and without satellite support, local counterbattery fire only accounted for a fifth of them. A second salvo landed slightly farther north, then a third. It turned into a moving swath of death, driving the UN troops ahead of it.
Naumann didn't like what he saw. There weren't nearly as many artillery rounds available as he had predicted. Only eight Guardians had been captured, rather than the twelve he'd expected—one of the missile teams had gotten a bit too enthusiastic. He pulled the seven less experienced pilots out and sent them to threat assessment. The eight pilots he did use were perhaps the best close-support pilots in the FMF. That would help. "Cut half the tubes on the next five volleys, advance as planned, then cut to thirty-five percent fire after that. Keep them rotating to save force and make every fifth tube counterbattery. How is CAC coming?"
"CAC reports they will be designating targets in six segs," support control reported.
"Understood. Take care of the arty and armor first, then get them on the bluff," he ordered. He keyed his mike and said, "Infantry. Naumann. Air support will be there soonest. Hold position."
General Meyer was having problems of his own. The rebels couldn't have enough explosives and auto systems to keep this up for long, but he was taking serious casualties. There was nowhere to retreat, with the river on two sides and artillery rolling up from the south. He couldn't fight artillery without air support or modern counterfire. He could fight the rebel ground forces. But how many casualties would it take? He kept pushing his troops, trying to sound confident. Would they hold long enough to fight their way through? There was no contact of any kind with Jefferson, so he had to assume the airbase had its own problems. He ordered his remaining light mortars and vehicle cannon to target the hillside from the bottom. That should clear a hole through the mines and hopefully take out the troops behind them, too. He sent a wave of drones up, risking their loss to get intelligence. He had to know what was up there. He demanded intel from every unit, camera and vehicle, and tried to lay out a counterattack.
Buried in her hasty position, Kendra heard Naumann's advisory. Hold how long? she thought. There were a lot of UN troops down there, with a lot of vehicles. Most of those had served weapons. It would turn into a bloodbath if it became supported infantry attacking a numerically inferior force of grunt infantry.
She watched from her position. It was a hollow dug in the earth, a web of netting and twigs over a woven polymer mat and a layer of sandbags as rests and cover. The tiny portable monitors showed the automatic weapons arming. The first echelon detonated, sending out hypervelocity shrapnel in an arc like a circular saw. Bodies cut in half collapsed in heaps, some wriggling in brief agony before finally dying. The UN forces momentarily stopped, then spread out to flow around her. "Station Three, this is One. Data sent," she advised as she dumped the video into the net. Incoming intelligence from other stations showed a huge force massing. There were far more enemy than anyone had anticipated and they had no air or arty support yet. She frowned and overrode automatic for the second echelon. She triggered the mines from outside in, to channel the dismounted troops for greater casualties. Gouts of mud erupted skyward and UN soldiers ran to avoid the carnage. Her reinforcing squad took aim at any vehicle and she ordered them to choose targets toward the outside first. "This is One. Engage automatics from the outside, say again, engage toward the middle of your position. Cut them into as many bits as possible," she ordered her other two squads. This was going to be unbelievably bloody.
She chose now to launch her three drones, laying a bisected V across the zone. The drones dropped sensor mines that armed on impact and split the approaching force into two pinned groups and two small groups of stragglers. She directed automatic fire and the drones over them. The drones sought movement and targeted. When they exhausted, they detonated, adding more bodies to the toll.
The forward elements hit her first perimeter, well up the slope and in the trees, and the M-67 Hellstorm system tore them to pieces. Fragmentation mines, direction-seeking concussion, and anti-armor mines blasted across the landscape in a dark gray pall of mindless death. On one of her monitors she saw an Octopus mine trigger, leaping through the air, sensacles waving until it brushed a horrified, retreating soldier and detonated. The screen went blank as the camera was destroyed by the blast. It cut to the second perimeter camera. "Left support, drop your loads and retreat to Line Two," she ordered. There was a flicker of confirming indicators and of charges arming, then her attention swung back. "Reserves reinforce the right," she ordered as she switched frequencies and continued. "This is One. Go to manual and do as much damage as you can, then switch back to automatic. Prepare to engage on ground. Hold positions as long as you can. We will retreat toward the east and south as necessary."
Her screens turned to static. Someone in the UN had finally taken control and found some of the frequencies she was using. She had two wired feeds left. Quickly sketching in her mind her last recollection of the scene, she scramble transmitted, "Right, retreat on your own authority. Give me data soonest. All units ground and cover." She paused five seconds, then detonated the entire remaining first echelon, setting the second one to individual automatic. It was not as effective as sequenced groups, but would last slightly longer. She was rapidly running out of explosives and still needed to hold as long as possible.
She swore as one of her remaining feeds died, hit by a stray shot. Right informed her they were retreating. She ordered left to pull back as soon as they thought it advisable. This was not good. Any hole in the line would mean huge casualties and probable loss of the battle. One echelon of mines left.
The last feed died. She set everything to automatic and grabbed her gear. With nothing left to do here, she might as well head out. That meant almost certain death, unless a miracle happened. It didn't occur to her to run and abandon her troops.
The bunker had tendrils of smoke, but outside was a scene from hell itself. Dark night sky, pounding rain, howling wind through the trees. There was the steady cacophony of small arms, the occasional slam of explosives and distant, barely audible screams. A stench of blood, scorched meat, ozone, chemical residue and fresh earth assaulted her nostrils. "All elements retreat to second perimeter," she ordered over the noise. Flashes from weapons and illumination threw ghostly, cavorting shadows through the trees.
There was the scream of a light shell, probably mortar, she thought. She flattened and was grateful that it detonated in the treetops. She praised the thick forest and hoped it would hold. Then there was the basso chatter of cannon fire chewing into the ground. It wasn't well aimed; the weather and lack of intelligence forced the gunners to resort to eyeballs, but it was still potentially lethal. The crakcrakcrak sound set her ears to ringing. She cursed and ducked.
Meyer grinned in triumph. The mines had dropped off to almost nothing. The opposition was sporadic now. If he could punch through the few remaining elements, he could throw the entire front into disarray. That would make it a matter of force versus force and the UN had a far larger army. Now to drive the nails into the coffin. There couldn't be more than a few squads opposing them in Sector 2. He urged the troops to attack. He understood reluctance, but hesitation would be lethal. They must attack quickly. That damned enemy artillery was good, and it was chewing his support to pieces.
Kendra slipped cautiously forward toward the battle, her tac giving her details of the horror below. The last echelon of mines, reinforced with a few hastily thrown scatterpacks, was detonating at the bottom of the slope. "All elements cover in the trees at one-ought-ought meters, line abreast," she ordered and picked a spot near a stout bluemaple. Rain trickled down her back and between her buttocks, cold and shivery. She stuffed her clips into pockets and pouches, readily accessible. This was going to be ugly.
The trees were thick enough and heavy enough to prevent even armor from entering, so the smaller vehicles wouldn't be a problem. Most of the heavy vehicles had been captured or destroyed, all but eliminating that threat, but there were undoubtedly more mortars and rockets available. Her squad had three M-41 Dragonbreaths and a small mortar, two squad weapons and one last trap. That and Naumann's belief that they could hold until the UN broke and surrendered.
She heard an advisory from her left neighbor, whom she knew only as "Second Platoon," nodded to herself and ordered, "Inverted V position, elements at twenty-meter intervals, stand by on tubes." With the squads in V formation, she could have them retreat as they took casualties—and they were going to take casualties—and still have a line abreast formation with decent defense. It also gave better crossfire opportunities. She moved back ten meters behind the line she'd set. Thank God they all had modern helmets with tac and comm, if they could use them properly. She got a row of green acknowledgment lights and hunkered down to wait. Wet dead leaves plastered against her as the wind gusted past. She noted that the friendly artillery was decreasing. Either ammo was running low or they were taking casualties.
It wasn't a long wait. A probe in force moved quickly toward the ridge, one soldier carrying a sensor suite. "Squad leaders engage at will—break—First squad fire on my command," she ordered. Just a bit closer . . .
"Fire," she snapped. Three rounds took the bearer, four more the pack he carried. A volley dropped the rest of the probe, some covering, most dead. Sporadic fire returned and one light winked on her helmet. Casualty. Lethal. It was not someone she knew personally, just a name: Lowe.
There was a large, seething mass approaching, vehicles crawling to the edge of the woodline with ground troops among them. She could pick out darting figures on her visor and the signs of others behind them. They were waiting to determine where her troops were, then they'd rush. She had the one last area weapon left. She warned, "Fire in the hole," and coded for ignition, then closed her eyes and felt the actinic brightness against her face, right through the polarized visor. The improvised weapon was a string of white phosphorus and magburn canisters along the edge of the trees. It hurled white-hot flame into the troops dismounting from their vehicles, creating more disorder and casualties and a roaring fire to damage night vision and sensors.
There was a pause, then the rest of the U.N. troops swarmed forward as the initial flash died, desperately seeking cover in the same trees that protected the defenders. She raised her weapon and fired a string of fifteen grenades along the approaching front, the recoil hammering into her shoulder. There'd be bruises there tomorrow. She reloaded quickly as the second wave hit the dense cover of the trees. Her squad was taking shots at the attackers and she could see them falling. There were six directly ahead of her, less than one hundred meters away and closing at a run. Her rifle pointed almost of its own accord and she commenced careful, rapid single shots as they appeared through gaps between the boles. Six rounds, six hits, then three more as others appeared. Another light winked on her visor. "Eighteen, Two, fall back and fill in," she shouted to hear herself. "And fire the tubes!" Her own weapon was relatively quiet, but the simple mass of fire brought the volume up. There were explosions among the trees that threw sparks and debris across her vision and added to the din. She moved farther to her left, the south, where the shooting was heavier. She scrolled through her vision options, but found nothing obvious to shoot at. A glance at the other two squads she commanded didn't offer much. On the other hand, the reservists leading them seemed to have their heads on straight. They were following her lead and keeping order.
The shrieking hiss of the Dragonbreaths startled her, even though she expected it. Three tongues of flame lashed into the approaching mob, the flash ruining night vision and momentarily blinding sensors. Men and women screamed as the chemical fire reacted with their skin to burn hotter still. They thrashed in agony as their squadmates recoiled in horror. The weapon was intended for bunkers, not open terrain. Temporarily stunned and illuminated, they dropped by the tens from desperately accurate rebel rifle fire from Kendra's platoon and the flanking units.
Movement. It was too high to be ground troops and too small and low to be an aircraft. It was a recon drone, hovering quietly on its impeller, guided through the trees by its robotic mind. She took careful aim, letting the grenade read the image, then squeezed the trigger. The small hyperexplosive charge smashed the pod, its turbine shattering at high revs, the pieces tearing chunks from nearby limbs.
Becoming resolute again as the incendiary brightness faded, the enemy advanced en masse. Kendra shot dry, reloaded quickly and tried to shoot back to her previous line of aim, now covered with incoming troops crashing through the underbrush. There was a brief pause and she switched to a fresh clip. She had two full clips of one hundred left and one of thirty-seven. After that, hand to hand. After that, she didn't want to consider. The war was lost, that was all.
Another casualty, only two spaces from her. "Fourteen, fall back and fill in," she ordered again and retreated one tree during a lull. It had a boulder next to it she could use as a better defensive position. She had barely reached it when another salvo of mortar bombs detonated. Before the firecracker pops of antipersonnel rounds finished, a second one of standard high-explosive hit, booming echoes through the trees. Illumination flares were glaring overhead, but the shadows confused what vision the light gave. She hoped that was true for the enemy, also. The occasional canopy fire they ignited was quickly doused by the rain, but hot cinders of twigs blew down here and there. She slapped at her neck and brushed off a glowing ember.
She could hear fire from the sides, indicating that the other sectors were still holding to some degree. How much longer? She wiped droplets from her sight screen. Water was running into her boots now and her pants were soaked and cold. Her breasts were tingling from the chill as they had in basic training, a lifetime ago. Branches fell from the trees as cannon fire shattered them. The occasional trunk exploded in a shower of wooden needles. The forest was just one more casualty of the battle.
The enemy was well into the trees, crawling and darting through the weeds toward her position and shouting. She leaned across the rock, breathed and commenced firing. Pops and louder bangs sounded all around her and more of the enemy collapsed, some screaming for help, some silent and some wiggling closer. She set her grenades for minimum range, airburst, and fired three down the center. She had two hand grenades, but hoped it wouldn't get that close. She knew better.
The enemy was covering and creeping nearer. She sighted one figure as he shimmied forward and put a bullet through the top of his head. That earned her a torrent of return fire from his comrades, rock chips slashing and stinging across her face as she ducked. Time to move.
"Elements retreat twenty meters by leapfrog. Provide cover," she ordered her whole force. Then she slid low and lizard-crawled backward, rifle over her arms in case she needed it in a hurry. Another light blinked. Dead. An explosion shattered the ground next to her, spraying her with mud and stinging like a hard slap. Whatever it was, it was a thankfully small charge and the soft wet ground had tamped it just enough to expend its force upward. Her hearing dropped a level despite the helmet cushioning and a ringing sound drowned out much of what she could hear.
She hoped they retreated in an organized fashion. They were doing admirably well for predominantly untrained amateurs; only nine of sixty were veterans of active duty. Most had some experience, but guerrilla fighting was different from a stand-up battle. None of the guerrillas had ever used tac helmets, and she worried that the wealth of intelligence displayed would distract them.
As she slithered farther, her hand brushed a mate to the bomb that had just missed her. This one was sunk into the dirt but had not hit hard enough to explode. Perhaps it had ricocheted off a tree. No matter, it was still live and she shied from it and worked her way around.
Clicking in her ears indicated a scrambled and burst message being decoded. "Pacelli, retreat at once to Zeta Three. Report when clear," Naumann's voice was barely audible in her ears. She boosted the gain.
Retreat? At once? How the hell do I do that? she thought. If we cover, they'll kill us as they roll over us. If we run, we get shot in the back. If we retreat piecemeal, we get cut to shreds. The only thing that came to mind was to let them roll through and attempt to surrender, then hope to survive whatever Naumann planned. That was suicidal, too. Zeta Three was the grid mark south of them along the ridge. So what was happening up north?
She forced herself to think. "Forward elements, fall back forty meters soonest. Report when done." Leapfrog them back a few meters at a time, covering each other as they did so? What would conserve troops and be effective? A click signaled another message.
"Pacelli. Retreat to Zeta Three immediately. We're—" it chopped off.
Her helmet was dead. More jamming. The sights on her weapon and the grenade controls were frozen, too. Directional EMP.
She realized now why the fire was so heavy—it was all concentrated at her position in an attempt to break through. Naumann was going to blow holy hell out of the area. If her troops were there, they'd be hamburger.
The problem was that the platoon on her right flank was no longer capable of holding. There was fire coming from that direction, indicating that they were either being forced to retreat or had been subdued. If she pulled back from the right flank, the UN troops would simply follow her. Some would die, but they'd be inside the perimeter. Naumann certainly had the temperament to kill his own troops to get them, but not enough soldiers to waste. If she retreated, they would be swarmed. If she held, they'd be under whatever Naumann was about to throw. Either way, her troops were dead. And she had no commo or night vision.
She stood and sprinted, tossing her helmet aside. Fire spattered the ground around her feet as she dodged trees. She counted paces through her rasping breath and angled downslope. She was working on eyeballs alone, assisted by flarelight, hindered by smoke and dark. A sharp pain burned across her left arm as a branch snagged her, but she kept running.
The end troop, whose name she didn't know, turned at her approach and fired. He yanked the weapon aside as he identified her, and missed. "Incoming!" she shrieked, gasping for breath. "Move out Now!"
He stood and ran, taking a supporting position behind a tree and waiting for her.
"Go now!" she screamed and pointed. "Twenty meters, then right and keep going!"
A hum alerted her. She spun and saw another recon drone, hovering and scanning. She swung her weapon up and fired a grenade. It arced away, struck a limb and detonated. She cursed. Her weapon had been set to minimum airburst when the EMP hit them, but it had defaulted to contact fusing. It couldn't accept proximity fusing, as the sensors and controls were damaged. She took careful aim and fired again at the small pod. She missed as it easily evaded, and fired at it again. This time she hit and it exploded, metal and fiber confetti drifting out of the smoky cloud.
The damage was already done. The incoming fire was intensifying and seeker projos swarmed down. She ran back upslope obliquely, hearing them zizzzzz! behind her as they sought human body temperature. The enemy knew what line they were on now.
She had a repeat of her first warning, as the second woman in line almost wasted her, too. "Incoming! Run!" she repeated and staggered past. She ordered the next one to get the message to the other side and pull them back, then alert the next unit. He nodded and ran.
She ducked past a tree and another drone sat a bare two meters from her, drinking in data. She fired bullets at it as it tried to dodge. It thrust up then over and down again. Finally, a few shots grazed it and she caught the main probe panel with a lucky shot. It drifted away, weaving as it did and she downed it with two more shots. A distant series of thumps indicated another salvo of canisters full of seekers on the way from small mortars.
The squad was peeling back slowly, which was still dangerous, but might let some of the others survive. They'd have to clear a safe distance, then hold it against anything that came. If she could get a runner to the next platoon for support, they could keep the UN where it was until the artillery arrived. Seekers swarmed through the woods like angry hornets, seeking warmth to bury themselves in. The cold wetness of the trees made it easy for them to find the blazing heat of the defenders' bodies, but also interfered with their flights. Kendra heard a zizzzzz! and a meaty thunk as one caught her in the calf.
She stumbled, rolled upright and kept limping, shrieking under her breath in tortured agony. It felt exactly as she'd been told it would to get shot—a freezing, burning, electric cramp through the muscles.
She reached the second man from her position, whose leg was shattered. He'd tied a tourniquet and stopped the bleeding, but couldn't possibly walk. He was barely conscious. She slung her rifle, pulled at his arm and began dragging him, fire lancing up her leg. Waving her left arm, she stumbled toward the last troop in line. He came running to help. "No!" she shouted. "Retreat!"
Through the roaring confusion she somehow detected death approaching from all sides. She spun and walked a burst of automatic fire into a disorganized gaggle of UN soldiers just coming through the trees, shooting offhand with her left hand, the weapon a heavy, kicking weight on her wrist, an ache in her arm. Sighting movement in the dying flicker of a flare, she lobbed three more grenades, still set to contact fuse, into an approaching knot from the right flank. The enemy were spilling through the gap to her right, pounding for the summit to hold the position and fight an attrition battle that they would surely win. She fired to her left again, then to the right, while backing away with her burden.
Her good ankle twisted on a branch, spilling her to the ground. She stifled a scream as her casualty groaned, still alive, and she forced herself to her knees and up under him. She muscled him into a rescue carry, more painful but faster. After nearly three hundred meters of sprinting through rough terrain, with a burden for the last fifty, she was seeing black spots. A hidden tactical part of her brain made her reach for, arm and throw her two hand grenades to keep the enemy's head down. They were small charges, but even with the cover of the trees they were close enough after her feeble throws that the blasts ripped at her. She ate up one clip and let the weapon hang from its sling so she could reload with her single available hand, falling uphill and to the right.
Her last right-flank troop had either not heard her or ignored her. He dropped two clips at her feet, took the limp form from her shoulder and hefted it easily across his brawny back. "You have the rifle, you cover me! Back soon!" he shouted and took off at a sprint.
Kendra grabbed the clips and turned, throat too dry to talk or swallow, and pumped out her last nine grenades. There were figures darting all around her now and she wasn't sure if any were friendlies. There wasn't time to decide. She leaned against a tree for support, raised her rifle and used the iron sights. She had no idea how many she killed, but the barrel was hot enough to burn her hand by the time she finished the next clip. She reached for another as she retreated. Then her unconscious kicked in again. She threw herself flat.
Rob threw his craft over the ridgeline inverted. That allowed maximum gees and better control. He grunted as the strain hit his guts and legs, and triggered the cannon. I hope the friendlies are clear, because I'm killing everything, he thought. He raked the fire straight down, rolling around his point of aim to right the craft. That was as close as he dared get to the reported Freehold line, not wanting to perpetuate the oxymoron of "friendly fire." As he leveled across the plain, he unloaded incendiary and HE bomblets and a canister of butterfly mines. They were nasty little things, basically two razor blades and a detonating cap. They'd cripple anyone who stepped on one.
He Immelmanned back on his course, straining the engines and the airframe, and locked missiles and rockets back along the route he'd come. He designated two points on the top of the ridge and tossed HE that way, then tore to his right along the treeline. He dumped the racks on what looked like an entire regiment of dismounted infantry, their vehicles parked and useless. He lit a few tanks, just because he could, and any ADA, because he had to and to keep them too busy to worry about the friendlies, and headed south. He'd swing between the chain of hills and come back to the aviation position that way. He hugged the earth for safety as he went, driving the speed up past 2500 kpd. "Target tank, target ayda priority, target, one, two, thermal, selsee, three retar antarm, target target four five, reset dez, target one, target mortar two, eecee flare, left cannon target three, target four thermal, mass target five cannon . . ." He controlled his craft with the surety of years of practice, straining the system to the edge of its envelope with the mass of targeting data.
He punched through a large, low cloud of smoke, lifting slightly, just in case. Sensors didn't show anything in it, but he wasn't taking chances.
Pain!! Shock. Heat. Cold. Electromagnetic pulse directed at his craft was powerful enough to overload the shielding capacity of his craft's frame and hit his implant. The controls flickered in his sight, resumed chaotically with figures that made no sense. He scanned, still stunned, head throbbing and eyes blurring. He'd dropped dangerously low while recovering.
WARNING! flashed in his environment. He scanned the telltales and saw nothing, and felt no touches at his temples. Control link gone or implant module damaged. Vision began to fade. He swore and slowed. At least he was clear of the UN lines. Now what?
Control was failing. The ground was coming up fast. He pulled and nothing happened. Boosting throttles didn't help.
Shit.
What the hell was up there? Meyer wondered. He'd saturated the area with what support weapons he had and the drones showed only a few infantry. The squad leaders were still reporting heavy small arms fire and the casualty count confirmed it. Could they all be in dug-in positions? But sonar and seismograph showed no major holes. Individual positions shouldn't be hard to overrun . . . unless there were a lot of them. That many should show some kind of thermal reading, sound or something the drones could measure. Nothing. The rebels had just plowed the area with close support, so it had to be clear now. He relayed that advice and ordered them to push harder. This should do it. If they could break through now, the enemy would have to surrender or be slaughtered and he could call for reinforcements.
The sky filled with the basso fabric-ripping sound of high-speed cannons. Hatchets made that sound, and nothing else. Wet splinters showered Kendra as the swath of death moved within meters of her and downslope. She stood quickly, surprising a Peacekeeper about to step on her. He staggered, confused and staring blankly and she kicked his kneecap, wondering why her calf no longer hurt. As he stumbled, she brought her leg up, knee in his face, and crashed her rifle on the back of his neck. She jerked a half step, knee searing, and shot again. The buddy of the last assailant appeared next to her, pointing the muzzle of his weapon into her face. She stared down the black hole for only a microsecond, then parried it and smashed him in the face with her muzzle as she shot. She swung around and fired at another trio stumbling into view. Her clip ran out and she reached for another. She had none. She buttstroked another soldier as he charged blindly past, kicked his ankle from under him and circled her foot over to crush this throat, feeling the gristly crunch up her leg. She grinned unconsciously. This was it. Time to die. A ripple ran up her spine.
Slinging the weapon and drawing her sword, she turned and ran uphill. Another drone sat in the crotch of a tree, trying to be inconspicuous. She jabbed the blade into the nacelle and the turbine shredded, throwing needlelike shards into her hand. They didn't do much damage, but her hand blazed with white-hot pain. As she ran past, the sky was ripped again, level with her, as a pilot gunned along the bottom of the hill. Ahead of her, two UN troops were braced against a tree, shooting at someone from her squad. She slashed across the spine of one and thrust into the kidney of the second. The first one screamed and thrashed to the ground, half paralyzed. The second simply collapsed. The keen blade had sliced through fabric designed to resist impact, not cutting.
Sheathing her sticky, gory blade, she grabbed the weapon and magazines from the dead one as she rolled for cover, bullets cracking past her. It was familiar from practice years past and Freehold training, and she retreated backward, shooting at anything that moved, starting with the one she'd wounded with her sword. The targets were backlit by the roiling fires below and she picked them out and picked them off. Fire. Aim. Fire. Aim. A round cracked past her ear, ignored in her current frame of mind. Shoot. Shoot again. Reload.
She saw movement, aimed toward it, then realized in the shifting light that the clothing of the figure on the ground was local hunting camouflage and the person wearing it was not in anything resembling cover. He was still moving, though. She fired three bursts to keep heads down and ran downslope. Her calf cramped with every jarring heelbeat and she winced, biting her lip. A few rounds made her flinch and she ducked lower, running hunched over.
The casualty was one of hers, but she had forgotten his name. Again she slung her weapon, heaved him up and around and over her shoulder and backed away, firing with her half aching, half tingling-numb left arm. Her bursts were fired for directional effect, not with any real hope of hitting anything. She stopped shooting as incoming rounds replied, aiming where her weapon had been when she fired. A part of her brain realized that meant that the UN helmets were nonfunctional, also. The pilot must have emped them as he tore overhead.
She chose her aim carefully and walked a series of bursts into the area in question. No further fire came from that one, but tens of others whipped past, cracking as they did. She stumbled, recovered and carefully lowered her burden behind a shattered stump. She crouched, rested her arm on her knee, and recalled where the last flashes had been. Returning to single shots to conserve ammo, she returned fire as fast as she could aim and squeeze. The enemy approaching seemed simply to materialize out of the flickering light and she swung back and forth, stopping the closest, taking any targets of opportunity between them. It was a losing proposition and she knew it. Fire. Fire again. Click! Curse and reload with one partial magazine. She quickly checked for her sword, realizing she would need it again soon.
Her shots spaced longer apart, then stopped. She could see UN troops throwing their weapons, scuttling behind trees and waving their arms. Cries of "Surrender!" and "Medic!" sounded all around, mingled with curses and screams.
The hillside was eerily quiet behind the voices, bereft of weapons fire. Smoke and steam drifted past in a nightmarish illusion of reality. She could hear ringing in her ears and wondered if she were deaf. There was smoky fire below and to her right. Running fingers through her hair, she waited for any sign of movement. Nothing. She crawled behind the tree, dragged her second casualty over her shoulder, turned and trudged, alert for danger, watching for her people. There they were. Eight of them and one wounded, anyway. And more fires behind them. She and her casualty made it eleven out of twenty.
Her hair was sticky, she thought. In a moment, she realized it was her hand. Blood. Probably from the victim she'd carried. Then she remembered the shower of shrapnel from the drone. Then she noticed the neat gouge in her arm, where she thought a branch had caught her. It was a bullet wound and suddenly hurt like hell. Her arm cramped up and she winced. Blood was running freely. Her leg turned rubbery, then tensed up, dropping her sideways.
She collapsed as hands reached for her.
General Meyer stood as the rebel commander entered. A man, quite young and shorter than he, saluted and said, "I am Colonel Alan Naumann, General. I accept your surrender. Please order all your assets to cease fire and prepare for internment."
He saluted back. "I already have, Colonel. My congratulations on a brilliant mission. I wouldn't have thought it possible . . ." he tapered off, realizing that his career and perhaps his life were over. Outside, his headquarters company marched by, hands on heads, escorted by Freeholders. The prisoners looked stunned and occasionally sent awed glances toward the outnumbered enemy that had simply refused to yield to reality.
"Congratulate my troops. I just led," Naumann said. He looked distracted. "We will take you to the capital and arrange for your return. This battle is won, but there is still a war to finish."
"Thank you, Colonel. I'm amazed at your total destruction of our satellites," he hinted.
"Yes?"
"I understood you had no local space assets. How did you destroy them?" he asked.
Staring levelly, Naumann said, "That was the Special Warfare Regiments and a few remaining boats."
"To all the stations? But how did they get through the sensor fields?"
"That I cannot tell you." The sensors were programmed to ignore vacsuited individuals to make maintenance easier. Typical bureaucratic laziness. Naumann had no intention of revealing that at this time.
"But how long did that take? How much oxygen do they have?" Meyer asked. That wasn't possible!
"Not enough," Naumann confirmed.
"But . . . I'll ask our ships to search for survivors," he offered. Mother of God!
"Thank you for your offer. That won't be necessary. They had no way to evacuate from the structures anyway," Naumann said. He looked very tired and hurt.
Meyer stood silently, eyes locked with Naumann for about a minute. His mouth worked silently, finally rasping, "I would consider it an honor to attend that memorial, sir."
"Granted," Naumann nodded. Turning his face away, he said, "The guards will escort you to our headquarters."
Kendra sat at a UN medic's tent, now run by Freeholders. They'd patched her arm and leg and the flesh wound in her other leg she hadn't noticed and told her to wait for a scanner to become free. The surgeon in charge expressed the opinion that she'd lost thirty-five percent of her hearing, but that would have to wait for better facilities.
She sat silently, tired and sick and emotionless. Someone had told her she was a hero, and her force had held the brunt of the attack. The four-hundred-odd Freehold regulars and militia along the ridge had held against almost seven thousand UN infantry troops with weapons and vehicles. She nodded, uncomprehending, and tried to ignore her ringing ears.
Reports were coming in across the system. The UN fleet had been captured or destroyed, mostly by converted mining craft and ore carriers using mining charges and beam weapons. Once command and control was lost, the UN forces had muddled about helplessly, individual commanders untrained and unwilling to take charge and give orders. The casualties had been horrifying on both sides. The SpecWar Regiments had captured or destroyed every fixed station that mattered and two cruisers at a cost of ninty percent casualties.
And there'd been biochemical attacks south of Kendra's position, an act of desperation by an artillery commander who had hoped to save his troops. There were tens of casualties, alive but raving from the vicious neural toxin.
Cowboy was dead, brought down by ADA fire. Rob was reported missing in action, which meant dead. Kendra supposed she should be crying for his loss, but couldn't track enough to hurt. It occurred to her she was one of the lucky ones; alive, mostly intact and not screaming crazy from nanowar. She didn't feel lucky.
"In here!" a voice called. Marta snapped alert. Freehold or UN? Risk a fight? Or surrender? Was it over? She was still asking herself questions as the door was pried open with a bar. She waited to see how it developed.
UN troops swarmed into the room. "Here's the general. Dead," one said.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" one asked.
Before she could answer, the first shouted, "Fucking sure she's okay! Someone fucking strangled him!" He leaped over to her, raised his hand and punched her. She blocked it, stepped aside and disarmed him. As she raised his weapon, a massive blow crashed into her head. She staggered back into the wall, her face in agony, sinuses already stopped with blood. She tried to get into a defensive stance, but the shock and suddenness had her totally disoriented. She felt several more blows and mercifully passed out.