Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (24 page)

“Of course” replied Julian.

“Come on Bel follow me” hailed Ginty. “Kong you slot in behind Alpha.”

“Roger” said the deep voice of her platoon Sgt.

Bel was already running behind her troops and patting them on the back. They were falling in at the crouch behind her. Bel led them up to where Ginty was crouched. “100m prop and turn right, single line ten paces apart, assault on my command.”

“Got it” acknowledged Bel and she pushed on past Ginty. Ginty was pleased to see Kong’s big frame. He had a reassuring presence about him. “Show time, Kong. We’ll be the second line behind Bel.”

“OK” he said and turned to his support section and simply said “Follow me.”

The firing had dropped off a lot by now. The enemy must be low on ammo assessed Julian. That made him check his own. ‘Heavens’ he said to himself as he realised he had only four rounds of 25mm left. He switched to the pulse rifle and limited his fire to single shots.

Three minutes is all it took Alpha team to shake out. “Ready” hailed Bel. Ginty was a little puffed. She took in a few gulps of air and as soon as Kong went past her with his support section she hailed “Let’s go Bel.”

They moved at a slow, steady pace. Ginty looked left and saw the next figures. She knew Kong was at the end of this line about twenty five metres. Ten paces ahead was Bel’s right flank, one of her quanto gunners by the look of it. She could see the sporadic flashes of fire coming from her right. That was from the droids. She estimated they would soon cross their line and she hailed “Julian cease fire.”

“Affirmative.” And the fire stopped.

“Weapons free Bel, Kong” she hailed. But Bel’s troops in the front line did not fire. They held off, to close with the enemy. A few paces later the quanto on Bels left opened up. “Thirty, quarter right” advised the firer and the rest of the front line opened up on the target. This set off a scurrying of bodies up ahead as the rogan realised they were being flanked. But as they rose to move they were engaged and cut down. With thermals at 30 metres it was death to move.

They advanced another thirty metres over several bodies until the marine in front closed up to the entrance. At this stage a volley of fire came from the group with their backs to the cliff. Two marines in the line ahead of Ginty went down. Everyone else went prone and began returning fire.

Ginty was mightily sick of taking casualties. She needed to commit more troops to hit this new enemy from a different flank. That would mean Charlie team. “Jock can you push forward and aim for those flashes.”

“Right O” he hailed.

“Excuse me” hailed Julian “No point in losing more lives. Will you allow me to finish this off.”

Ginty chuckled. “Be my guest. Jock, stand down.”

“You got it” replied Jock.

Julian issued the commands for his remaining 12 droids to assault the remaining enemy. One group was coming from the west and the other from the south. He fire and moved them so that when the southern group were moving the western group were firing and vice versa.

A couple of rockets were fired from the enemy. One hit and damaged a droid. The other whizzed by some 20m from Ginty. The firing increased in tempo as the range closed. Several grenades went off and then the tell-tale hiss and tearing sound as the droids stepped over the enemy figures and rezzed them with their electric shock devices. One rogan jumped to his death rather than suffer that. None surrendered.

Julian got to witness much of that and he felt sick to his stomach. As an intellectual and technical exercise it was a consummate performance. Courage wise he had faced down the elephant but emotionally he was revolted. “It’s finished” is all he could say.

“Right” hailed Ginty “Kong, take Charlie and the charges and clear downstairs. If you run into any more trouble, holler. When she’s ready to blow let me know.”

“Jock, with me” hailed Kong.

“Bel, secure this area. Be careful not to step into the uncleared area. I need your medic with me now.”

Ginty led Cpl Harry Myers over to where Chen and Paddy had fallen. She came across Paddy first. He was lying face up. His face was a bloody pulp, masticated by the flechette round. She was known as a hard arse but no one could see that and not be reviled by it. She instinctively turned away but then forced herself to focus on the status indicator on the helmet which confirmed that the occupant was indeed dead.

She had only known Paddy a few months. He was one of the draft of replacements absorbed after the carnage on Beta Phi. He was competent and a nice enough guy, but if truth be told she didn’t really know him. After the losses on Beta Phi she hadn’t been as active in getting to know her troops as she had been before it. It hadn’t been a conscious decision. It just sort of happened that way. ‘I need to watch that’ she thought to herself.

“Over here” hailed Harry. He’d found Chen. Harry turned off his thermals and used his helmet light to see. Ginty reacted as the light blinded her. She switched her thermals off too. Harry turned over Chen’s body. He could see the side of his helmet where the pulse shot hit him. It didn’t look that bad. “Help me will you?” asked Harry and Ginty lent down and helped him reposition Chen.

Harry noted the status display on the helmet but he didn’t trust it. He hit the helmet release and gingerly started easing it off. The beam from his helmet light played across Chen’s face. There was dried blood all around his ear but otherwise he looked OK. Harry felt for his pulse. “Shit he’s alive” he hailed. He immediately took off his own bum bag, extracted his med kit and began a more thorough investigation.

“He’s out cold and lost half his ear but he’ll live” said Harry, now working fast to clean up the wound.

Ginty shook her head. “Talk about the luck of the Irish.”

“I thought he was Chinese” said Harry and they both laughed.

Twenty minutes later Harry was working his way around the fallen. He had half a dozen wounded tagged for evac, two of which were rogan. One of these was blabbing something in rogan but the translation protocol couldn’t decipher it. He gave the fellow a shot that knocked him out.

Ginty hailed him “Better hurry Harry we’re out of here in five.” Kong was moving around on top now martialling his marines for the return flight. Ginty had the demolition control. A couple of Bel’s team were helping move the wounded. What was left of Bravo team was guarding a dozen prisoners, mostly captured down below.

Ginty came up to Julian as he was about to board his droid pod. “Plenty of space on the return leg I see” she said to him. Julian nodded. “Could you take some of these prisoners? I can supply two guards.

Julian cast an eye over the many empty seats. “Sure” he said almost despondently.

Ginty could see he looked a little depressed. “You did all right for a rookie.” She gave him a big smile.

“Thanks” said Julian. After a moment pause he asked “How do you cope with all this.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it? But you get used to it.”

“Mmm…not sure if I want to.”

“Some of us don’t have much of a choice. Oh, got to go” she said and she switched channels “Roger Whiskey 1 we’re ready. Come on in.”

As the warthogs came in Ginty turned north to look over the site. Across the bay the night sky was pierced with sporadic tracer and the odd explosion. The Resistance were obviously still trying to wrestle control from the Imperialist but it was a desultory affair. ‘If only you knew what’s coming’ thought Ginty.

She climbed aboard Whiskey 1 and came forward to sit behind the pilot. She tapped Parinya on the shoulder. Parinya turned her head, saw the demo controller in Ginty’s hand. “On my command” Parinya said. Ginty nodded.

Julian’s pod was already away. After the pilots of the other warthogs confirmed, Parinya engaged the thrusters and arced skyward.

“Can we have a look see?” asked Ginty.

Parinya understood. She focussed her rear cameras onto the site and displayed the image on her screen. Ginty smiled “Ready when you are.” Parinya checked her altitude and nodded. With the swipe of her finger the screen filled with a giant flash. It would have been more spectacular down below but Ginty was quite content. She turned to give the thumbs up to the rest of her troops in the cabin. “Number one brings home the bacon again” she said with a big grin.

“Yey!” yelled out Jock loudly. It had been his handy work with the explosives.

His loud yell was followed by some loud laughing. Everyone turned to its source. Commander Charles Chen was lying strapped in to a stretcher on the floor. He was deliriously happy. Some would say he appeared ecstatic but all agreed they had never heard him laugh like that before.

Chapter 12. Rollinium 2330, 14 August

Twenty minutes since the inhabitants of Rollinium had witnessed the biggest explosion that most of them had seen, they were treated to an even more awesome spectacle.

The bombardment from the Resolute lasted only a few minutes. The fighter base five kilometres west of the space port bore the brunt with 20 missiles demolishing everything above the ground and a lot below it as well. A huge series of secondary explosions followed as fuel and missiles and ammunition went up as well.

Almost simultaneously the target known as Victor 1 was hit by twenty missiles. This was where the enemy AFVs had been detected. But it was also where the Imperial Rogan Army’s 41
^st
Independent Bn had its HQ. It was in an area of the city not 2kms north of the spaceport. It had been a transport hub. It was now the epicentre for a huge fire that was being fanned westward by the easterly winds.

The destruction of most of the AFVs was a blessing for the Resistance fighters, not to mention the destruction of the HQ but the fire blazing from building to building towards their front lines was anything but.

It was debatable as to which of the two combatants was most affected by the bombardment. The surviving warriors of the 41
^st
Bn were now headless, toothless and unsupported. Those on the western side of the spaceport were fleeing the fires south to the coast and then hopefully back east to the spaceport.

Those in the north had suffered the most. Everywhere there were destroyed buildings and bodies. For all intent and purpose the force there had ceased to exit.

The only really coherent unit was the 3
^rd
Coy occupying the business sector that lay east of the spaceport. Immediately east of the spaceport was a small bay that cut into the coastline of the city like a great big bite. A wetland ran north along the streams that drained to the bay. This had been zoned a no go area for development and created a three kilometre buffer between the spaceport and the city itself, traversed only by a raised freeway and an underground hover train tunnel.

The 3
^rd
Coy occupied positions within the city’s business district. Its high-rise buildings dominated the cityscape with views east across the bay, south to the great southern ocean and west to the spaceport across the wetlands. The mid-town residential hi rises that completely covered the high ground to the north were in the hands of the Resistance. Long range sniping duels between the warring parties stopped when the bombardment hit. The commander of the 3
^rd
Coy was trying in vain to make contact with his Bn commander. Command paralysis would mean this force would remain ineffective for some time to come.

The Resistance was not neatly organised like the Imperialist. It was an organisation marked more by the personalities and allegiances of its composite commanders than by some theoretical and regular structure. Group Mekshino, named after its commander a self-appointed Colonel Arorio Mekshino, was over 300 strong and it controlled the mid-town residential district. It had gotten off lightly from the bombardment and was in the best state to exploit the gap that now presented itself north of the spaceport.

This area had nominally been the responsibility of Group Diodin, led by the unassuming and some would say ineffective Teedros Diodin. But he and his 200 strong outfit had borne the brunt of the Victor 1 strike. Chaos reigned and casualties were everywhere. The good thing though was that, whereas before there had only been dozens of metres between them and the Imperialist, now there was a good 3kms of unoccupied ground between them and the spaceport.

But by far the most disrupted was Force Kaant. Its leader Colonel Rentra Kaant, a former Army reservist, had had the strongest force of over 500 soldiers. They were the ones responsible for most of the noise heard by Ginty from Portuscu Headland. They were conducting an assault from the western sector eastwards towards the spaceport when the onrushing firestorm caused all in its way to flee. Kaant’s force was now split and disrupted to the point that she was no longer able to exercise effective command. There was no superior commander as such that she could turn to, only the other Colonels. Diodin group was not responding to her calls. The duty officer at Group Mekshino advised her that their leader was busy. She was tempted to seek guidance from the political council but thought better of it.

Her first reaction had been to curse whoever had done this but she was by far the most resourceful and certainly the quickest of mind of the military leaders within the city. She had already tasked her staff to ascertain the status of her troops. She soon knew that over half had fled south. She ordered them to head east as soon as they could do so. She estimated she had only 200 effectives at her disposal in the north.

‘Where there is great calamity there is great opportunity’ she reminded herself. Her next priority was to find out what has happened to the enemy in the northern sector, the area that was ground zero for the bombardment. She despatched three of her command team to find out.

‘Now who has done this?’ she said to herself. She already knew about the destruction of the Imperialist ships. She knew about the destruction of the missile battery on Portuscu Headland and now she knew there was a ship capable of delivering this type of bombardment. It had appeared briefly on their passive sensors but was now gone again.