Earth Song: Etude to War (40 page)

Chapter 41

May 9th, 534 AE

Planet K, Contested Territory, Galactic Frontier

The Leesa light armored combat vehicle rolled on its six wheels around the corner of a partially collapsed distribution center in response to a squad calling for fire support. They reported that one of the bombs dropped by the shuttle minutes ago had landed without detonating. They were taking pot shots at it but nothing had happened and they were now worried it would go off unexpectedly.

The driver watched the screen through lidless eyes as they came around the corner, confident that his vehicle could resist most attacks long enough to withdraw to safety. The bombs might be dangerous to unsupported infantry, but he had a centimeter of dualloy and an active shield between himself and any threats. Yes, there was the downed bomb, its metallic casing badly crumpled. He just began to swing his main weapon around when it exploded.

The driver winced and then looked with curiosity. The detonation was small. Much smaller than the others he’d gotten reports on. More curious was that a framework was left behind, and it was moving.

“Oh no,” he hissed as that framework shifted and stood up on two powerful legs. “Combat suit!” he yelled over the radio and fired his main weapon.

The shot was not properly aimed and the heavy accelerator round winged off the edge of the suit’s defenses. It responded instantly, side stepping the follow up shot which missed entirely and raising an arm to point right at the vehicle. There was a blinding flash.

The squad that had summoned the combat vehicle watched in horror as the combat suit fired a trio of arm mounted energy weapons, obliterating the armored craft with one salvo. A moment later one of the squad’s heavy weapons crews fired a beamcaster which drew a red line across the suit’s defensive shields. It spun around and began spraying the squad with hypervelocity slugs.

Minu marveled at the combat suit operating around her. She was strapped into the machine, arms and legs held within its interior so she could not move, yet by just ‘trying’ to move an arm or a leg, the machine responded as if it was an extension of her body. The hectic hours configuring the suits en route to Planet K was paying off. They worked flawlessly.

Armed with beamcasters, lasers, miniature bomb launchers and a trio of hypervelocity cannon similar to what the Rasa preferred, she felt like some avenging angel from the myths she’d read about as a child, striding across the battlefield completely invulnerable. That was when another combat suit slammed into her from behind like a freight train.

“Damn it!” she barked and was catapulted into a ceramic concrete wall with enough force to shatter it and send her sprawling through the other side.

“Head and torso glacis armor damaged,” reported the suit AI in her ear, “reduction of efficiency by five percent.”

“Thanks,” she replied and shook her head to clear the cobwebs. Now that she was grounded, the powerful gravitic compensators no longer functioned. She was just a mortal woman wrapped in a thousand kilos of dualloy, moliplas, and super hi-tech ceramics.

She rolled in the debris of the building she’d been shoved into and raised a hand just as the distinctive three legged Mok-Tok combat suit began to barrel in after her.

She triggered all three of the beamcasters in volley fire mode and the enemy suit fell back behind the wall for cover, its shields flashing momentarily.

Minu rolled the suit back onto its feet and backed against the far wall of the space she found herself in, which might once have been an engineering building of some sort.

The Mok-Tok tossed a trio of bombs around the corner and she unconsciously threw up her hands to protect her face as they detonated, tearing the wall apart behind her and once more sending her flying. She fell off balance backwards, sprawling painfully into a street.

“This is klothshit,” she snarled as the Mok-Tok came scrambling through the hole after her. She triggered the jump-jets, rocketing upwards as the enemy suit swiped a clawed hand and just missed her legs. “I don’t know what these things are capable of,” she complained silently.

Pointing down with both arms she unleashed several bursts of beamcaster fire. The Mok-Tok rolled with startling grace as a pair of her shots hit it, before returning fire where she hovered, an easy target.

“Danger, excessive incoming fire!”

“You don’t say,” she growled and fought to make the flight system respond to her wishes. She finally succeeded in flying backwards over a rooftop and out of the line of fire. She was temporarily safe, but this entire dance was defeating the purpose of her deployment here. She activated the radio. “How is everyone doing?”

“Making progress,” Cherise reported.

“Same here,” Kal’at agreed, as did his man See’ta.

“Any enemy suits?”

“I had one,” Cherise told her. Minu’s adversary scrambled up the side of a building like a Traaga and recommenced spraying her with energy weapons. She spat and spun away from the fire.

“How the hell did you deal with it?”

“With as much unarmed combat training as we’ve had? Please, it was easy.”

Minu clamped her jaws together and silently berated herself. The combat suit was much more than a weapons system; it made the operator superhuman. Her Mok-Tok adversary hadn’t been trying to use weapons and gimmicks to defeat her, he’d been was using them to corner her and try to grapple. His suit was larger and likely more powerful. Minu’s was better armed and faster.

She also knew these machines were largely not manufactured anywhere in the Concordia any more, while hers was new and never seen combat.

She landed in the center of the building’s roof she’d used for cover and waited. It only took a moment for the Mok-Tok suit to clear the roofline and flip onto the top.

A pair of beamcaster bolts lanced out at Minu as she danced sideways and leaned forward. Highly compact and powerful motors drove her mechanical legs in a small hop and dug dualloy sharpened traction aides on her armored feet into the roof to accelerate with inhuman speed.

She closed in a second, running low and arms pumping. The Mok-Tok combat suit, mainly a squat torso with three long arms ending in three claws and a pair of short manipulators underneath the tri, scuttled at her like a crab. It fired twice more as it rushed;  she sidestepped one of the shots and the other glanced off her shields just over the left shoulder.

At the last second she slid like a runner going in for a baseball plate, flat on the ground with the pieces of roofing flying like dust. The Mok-Tok suit tried to arrest its forward momentum and failed as Minu snagged its forward leg and jerked. Her own momentum pulled it under with her and the enemy suit flipped up and over her, crashing to the roof with a boom.

One of its clawed arms flailed at her, sending sparks flying from her armored chest. Minu flipped and simultaneously batted the arm aside. Now astride the combat suit, she formed a knife edge with one hand and drove it straight into the underside of the suit, right over where she assumed the operator would be situated. The armor crunched and parted, her thrust driving straight through and into something soft. She made a fist and pulled back a huge handful of gore. The Mok-Tok suit jerked spasmodically once, and was still.

“You doing okay?” Cherise asked, and Minu turned her suit’s head to see her armored friend standing on the edge of the roof.

“Sure,” Minu replied and flicked gore from her hand. “All in a day’s work.”

* * *

“Kal’at, See’ta, link up. These suits work better in teams.” Minu nodded as she joined Cherise, her suit head mimicking the gesture. They did look a little like chaos-era knights in armor with these things. The proportions were a little wrong though. The arms were longer than they should be and the torso somewhat too compact; a legacy of the Lost who’d used them. She found it a minor hindrance in combat at the worst, and the longer arms a benefit. “We can’t really afford to lose any of you, or those suits.”

They both replied affirmatively and Minu synched up her virtual battle field to verify their location. Less than a kilometer remained to the portal spire. She turned and verified visually, even though it was really cameras she was looking through.

The inside of the driving compartment head area was painted with active display making it almost like she was standing outside, unprotected. At first it was disconcerting. She was getting used to it.

“Fighters,” Cherise warned and Minu pegged it on her own display. As one they both turned as a trio of Mok-Tok fighters screamed in over the horizon, no doubt scanning the battlefield for the threat that was taking out their combat suits.

“Splash them,” Minu said and raised an arm. The computer AI in her suit took over at her command, used a laser rangefinder to compute the distance and target velocity. Her suit linked with Cherise’s suit, and they both fired at the same time.

Three kilometers away two of the fighters were washed with three beamcasters each over and over. Caught by surprise only one of the two quickly evaded, its shields mostly depleted. The other one’s capacitors overloaded and the ship exploded into a fireball.

Again the suit AIs communicated and worked together, both firing on the injured fighter. The third and undamaged craft tried to cover for its wingmate. The suits were too accurate and a second fighter bloomed into a fireball. The last one retreated at Mach 2 with several beams chasing it.

“These suits are almost like a video game,” Cherise commented.

“Some game,” Minu said as she glanced at her suit’s right arm, dripping blood to the elbow.

“Gregg, this is Minu.”

“Online, boss.”

“We’re almost in position. You ready?”

“Second and Third Bats are mounted up and ready to go.”

“And your First Bat?”

“We’re covering the retreat. Don’t try to argue with me, we both wear two stars. I’m in charge of the Rangers and I’m not turning my back on these shambling mounds to let them chew us up from behind.”

“Not arguing,” she lied, “just getting the sit-rep down straight. Give us five more minutes to get in position and hit the defenders.”

“Understood, we’ll be ready.”

“Mother.”

“Yes Lilith.”

“I have confirmed a super-luminal wave front.”

Minu nodded. Her daughter had warned her of that once they had confirmed the Mok-Tok were behind the ambush. They were one of the surviving species known for their use of starships in the ancient times of the Lost.

“ETA?”

“No more than an hour.”

“Understood, have Pip stand ready. We need every minute you can buy us, honey.”

“I am a ship of the line,” she spoke, her voice full of utter confidence. “They will not find me an easy conquest. I will evaluate the threat when it materializes and update your virtual battlefield. And, mother?”

“Yes?”

“Please be careful with my baby brother or sister?”

Minu smiled. It was an interesting new side of her daughter she was seeing here. “I will. See you soon.”

Minu and Cherise hopped from rooftop to rooftop using the jumpjets and powerful legs of the suits. Moments later Kal’at and See’ta joined them.

Minu checked the virtual battlefield around them. Aside from a Leesa scout element a kilometer away, and the mass of soldiers at the Portal spire two kilometers distant, they were alone. This action would take pinpoint accuracy. Minu gave an instruction to her suit and another of its capabilities was utilized.

A small compartment on the back opened and a dozen tiny bots emerged and took to the wing. Resembling dragonfly-bots, they were almost undetectable and extremely fast. In less than a minute her virtual battlefield increased in its accuracy by an order of magnitude.

She’d resisted using them until now to avoid having her hand tipped. Pip had informed her there was nothing like this available in the Concordia, and probably hadn’t been for eons.

They immediately detected a dozen Leesa remote listening posts. She ordered their removal and the tiny bots dealt with them by landing on the devices and self-destructing. Costly, but effective. Now the enemy was blind on this front. The door was open. Now it was time for shock and awe. “Gregg, here we go. Prepare your barrage.”

“Noted boss, commencing in ten from my mark… MARK!”

Minu nodded to herself, engaged the preset clock in her virtual battlefield, synced the destination against the countdown, and waited.

The AI took over, calculating the distance required, the results of the barrage (a bone chilling estimate) and lethality as well as the suit’s movement velocity. Five seconds into the count the suit boosted on its jump jets. Two quick hops and they were within view of the main cargo deck of the spire.

Two kilometers back, a pair of transports that Gregg had carefully held in reserve deployed their cargo. The upper decks opened to reveal row after row of tubes, each four centimeters in diameter. In coordinated action, the tubes elevated, turned, and unleashed salvo after salvo of rockets.

A product of Ted Hurt and Bjorn Ganose back home, the rockets were something none of the Concordia species used. Indirect fire artillery was something they’d never gotten the knack of, not even in the era of the Lost.