Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (14 page)

Outnumbered

“Return fire! Concentrate on the Super Dreadnaught! I want those bastards to know what Hell is!” yelled Captain Worley at his Weapons Control officer. Only forty-three minutes after his battle group had finished mopping up the Coalition’s fighters, the armada had arrived and they were already inflicting heavy damages as the massive vessels danced around one another attempting to bring the greatest amount of force each side could bring to bear.

A Coalition Super Dreadnaught blackened out the stars in the heavens as the Heavy Cruiser, Christina, starboard to the Myrddin, was gutted as Coalition Ceramics turned her belly into shrapnel. She vented atmosphere as the violet light of her main engine went dark.

The Myrddin’s first return volley launched, followed by a second and third, emptying their ready loads of Leap Frogs as their hailstorm of Ceramics swept towards the truly awe inspiring, due to its colossal size, Coalition vessel. Apparently, they had got her attention too because the Super Dreadnaught was now directing its Ceramics at his vessel.

The Myrddin lurched as the hull was rocked by repeated impacts from the incoming barrage. Captain Worley managed to stay in his command chair, but not all of the bridge officers were so lucky. Kateland, the Communications Officer, was flung into the bulkhead with such force Worley heard her bones breaking as she struck the metal and sank to the deck plating with a surprised expression on her face. Several stations experienced power surges as the explosions that raked the Myrddin’s hull shorted out many of her key operations systems.

“Damage report!” Worley screamed at no one in particular.

“We’ve lost rail guns six through nine. There’s major damage to the hull in section twelve, twenty one, thirty four, and forty two,” came the shout of an unidentified voice through the thick haze quickly filling the bridge.

Another voice cried, “Main engines remain online and at full power, sir!”

A Coalition battleship came barreling towards the Myrddin at near ramming speed. Its Captain was trying his damnedest to get in for a full on broadside with his Ceramics. Worley knew they wouldn’t survive if that were allowed to happen.

They had to fire first.

“Take out that battleship!” Worley strained to make it happen with the utter desperation and fury of his voice.

A glance at the tactical display on the arm of his chair told him his initial volleys of what remained from his Ceramic rail guns were not reaching the battleship. The Super Dreadnaught’s close proximity allowed it to use a portion of its own Ceramic fire to sweep the bulk of the Myrddin’s Ceramics from the stars.

The enemy battleship’s own Ceramic ports bled more streaking death into the void as they approached the Myrddin. The tiny amount that connected with his ship, due to his Helmsman skill in throwing the ship into a wild loop lacked the destructive to do any significant damage to the battleship now coming along broadside. Worley frowned as the results of those volleys scrolled over his small tactical screen.

The approaching battleship’s engines flared to maximum power as it tried to dodge the almost point blank barrage the second volley of Ceramics the Myrddin had gotten off at it.

It rolled and twisted in space. Its attempts at evasive maneuvers were being pushed beyond their limits. The wounded battleship veered away from the Myrddin, but Worley did not intend to let her escape.

“Launch every Leap Frog in their tubes! Fire at will! Break that bastard’s back!” he ordered.

Streaks of Ceramics swept through the darkness between the two ships. They raked the battleship’s aft section, cutting through the armor of her hull.

A lucky shot from one of the Leap Frogs must have struck one of the battleship’s main Null Drives. Its entire aft section was almost atomized in a near blinding violet glow. Worley’s Weapons Officer gave a grunt of satisfaction.

One down, far too many to go, Worley thought.

“The Victory, the Argento, and the Hall are all gone, sir. The Regent and Trident are reporting severe structural damage. They are requesting permission to withdraw.”

Captain Worley slammed a fist down on the armrest of his command chair. “Damn it!” he raged. Over half of his best ships had been obliterated in a matter of minutes. There were still the three Coalition Super Dreadnaughts out there now to contend with too. The last one alone had all but crippled his battle group. “Tell the Regent and the Trident their requests are denied. As far as I am concerned, they can ram those Coalition bastards if their weapons systems are offline. Do I make myself clear?”

The crewmember who moved to take Kateland’s com station nodded her confirmation, though her expression told the captain that she was on the verge of running off the bridge herself towards an escape tube in utter terror

“We have got to take out those Super Dreadnaughts! Helmsman, I want maximum speed at that last ugly bastard who damaged the paint on my ship! Weapons Control, I want to be halfway down that big bastard’s throat when our Ceramics and Leap Frogs tear into its guts!”

The Myrddin’s launchers emptied themselves again as Leap Frogs targeted at the Super Dreadnaught blinked across the Normal Space between them while the Ceramics came fast and furious like bullets from a machine gun. Worley didn’t really think his barrage would hurt the monster of a ship, but he hoped they would occupy its attention and attempt to intercept with their own Ceramics again keeping them from opening up every bore at the approaching Myrddin.

The Myrddin followed closely on the Leap Frogs heels, its engines howling could be heard throughout the ship, as it tried to accelerate into point blank range of the Super Dreadnaught’s portside hull.

Whoever was in command aboard the Super Dreadnaught opted to take the impact of the bulk of the missiles in exchange for scoring a kill shot on the Myrddin.

Captain Marcus Worley never saw the Super Dreadnaught’s ceramics unleashed in a concentrated burst at the Myrddin. He and his bridge crew did not have to suffer any agony as they merely ceased to exist as they and the bridge around them became a mass of scattered debris.

“We’ve lost the Myrddin, sir!” Captain Park’s Executive Officer shouted at her as the Miranda’s bridge rocked about them and with her artificial gravity generators on the fritz a Coalition cruiser’s Ceramics swatted her off her intercept course with a wounded enemy battleship she had been trying to engage.

“That’s it!” Park muttered to herself. “Inform the remaining ships that Captain Worley is dead and that I am assuming command of the battle group. Order everyone who is still able to do so, make a run for the Null Point. Some of us need to survive this.”

The Miranda lurched again from the impact of another volley of Ceramics, flinging Captain Park forward with such force that she was propelled from her chair and smashed into the Virtual Array.

Chunks of the bridge’s roof collapsed inward and energy surges in the Miranda’s systems spiked, blowing out several stations in great cascades of sparks and blue flame. Black smoke filled the air too fast for the damaged life support scrubbers to fully deal with.

The Miranda’s helmsman threw himself to the floor, rolling about; his arms were on fire from the tips of his blackened, fleshless fingers to his sizzling elbows as he wailed in pain.

Captain Park’s corpse sat twisted and broken below the Virtual Array. Her neck was tilted at an impossible angle. Her lifeless eyes seemingly watching her executive officer try to reroute helm control to her own station. As the executive officer gained control, she looked at Captain Parks face, her eyes wide open in death, and quickly turning red as the blood from the fracture in Park’s skull flooded her eye sockets and the excess crimson dripped slowly down her cheeks.

At the Gates

Captain Burman was too busy dealing with the onslaught of information from the damage reports that were still pouring in from all over the Harrington to do much else. Admiral Watkins knew the death of the Earth Republic Fleet’s flagship was worth whatever price they had paid for it. Two thirds of the vessels that had been waiting for them in near Earth orbit upon their arrival had been dealt with and the rest were no longer trying to engage them.

The surviving Earth ships were trying desperately to enter the Null Point and flee from the Coalition’s oncoming might, just as things should be.

Admiral Watkins had ordered two squadrons of fighters to deal with the Earth’s orbital fortresses, nothing more than eternally orbiting Ceramic launchers that had only enough armor to protect them from whatever space debris they may encounter. They would be no trouble.

Admiral Watkins had to admit, to himself only of course, that the Earth Republic Fleet’s newer model Battle Fortresses’ level of firepower nearly matched that of the Harrington or any Super Dreadnaught. “What was this new missile technology they had developed?” Watkins thought as he watched his armada cut down yet another Republic ship. “The cursed weapons have slashed bloody swathes of destruction throughout my armada,a but no matter because in the end, victory will be mine,” the admiral thought as the last of the Republic ships trying to escape to the Null Point were turned into shards of debris spinning through the void.

“Captain Burman,” Admiral Watkins called out.

The Captain whirled from the console he had been leaned over to face Watkins. He snapped to attention as he said, "Yes Admiral?"

“As soon as this area is secured, I want our troops planet side.”

“Sir?” Burman asked.

Admiral Watkins shrugged, “Earth had its chance to surrender. I am not about to ask them again.”

“Yes sir,” Burman acknowledged.

“Show no mercy, Captain,” he added, “Make sure our troops understand that,” the admiral stat
e
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,
clearly placing particular emphasis on the word “no” as he turned and walked away.

Change of Plan

Ready alarms rang throughout the bowels of the Taylor along with sweeping red lights all along the roof of the converted cargo bay. “Because a near deafening claxon isn’t enough to let you know you’re about enter the gates of hell,” grunted Drake, happy his Coalition issue black helmet came equipped with sound dampening equipment.

The transport ship barreled down through Earth’s atmosphere at tremendous speeds. It created a brief fireball that arced across the heavens as the heat shielding of the transport performed its function which was to get the craft to the surface on its own power rather than have to reach it under the forces of gravity due to a surface to air missile smashing it to bits.

Those in the cargo bay could not see the two instances in which that almost happened but because of the skill of the pilot and the very best in Coalition missile confusion systems it was looking more and more likely that they would actually make their drop zone in one piece.

“The experience of dropping planetside was a different and much more comfortable experience aboard a Fleet transport than it was in traditional ground pounder dropship.” Drake mused. He and everyone else inside the bay were blissfully unaware that a missile carrying a two kiloton payload had just missed the hull of the transport by 2 meters. The Taylor possessed military grade inertial dampers that spared the tanks and soldiers inside her the turbulent bone jarring descent Drake had become accustomed to aboard the smaller infantry ships.

Looking at the bay doors in front of him, he noticed that Rachel and her company were buttoned up inside their vehicles, by this point each of the tank’s systems sub-routines were powered up and would be ready for full action with a nanoseconds notice. In addition to Rachel’s tanks, two oversized combat cars sat in the bay, ready to go with himself in one of them.

These vehicles would carry Drake and the others of Flint’s two squads out of the transport in the tanks’ wake. Drake adjusted his stance as he stood in the turret with the Mark-25 of the lead car, his hands gently sliding over the titanium receiver of the deadly anti-personnel weapon as if he was caressing the cheek of a newborn babe just come into the world, fresh, new and full of wonder.

Flipping the receiver cover open, he took hold of the first round of the five-hundred round belt, and placed it onto the feed mechanism. Closing the cover, he pulled back on the actuating lever, and let it go; surprised by the kick of adrenaline it gave him, releasing the bolt to drive the first 25mm airburst grenade into the chamber.

Taking hold of the firing mechanism with his right hand, he unlocked the weapon from the mount and moved the weapon around, smiling at the smooth easy glide of the turret and the thought of unleashing five-hundred rounds per minute of certain death. “Where is this planetside I’ve heard so much about,” Drake thought to himself and again was surprised at the conflicting emotions of the adrenaline rush that, still, always came before a really tough engagement and the thought that this particular altercation was going to decimate the surface of the home world of humanity.

He knew they would ditch the cars as soon as possible once they hit planetside, but the amount of carnage he could unleash on his way to wherever they ended up, brought him a feeling of contentment. Apart from the light armor around the crew compartment the combat car’s speed and ability to dish out some hardcore hurt were their only defenses and statistically speaking they were rarely enough but Drake thought, not for the last time. “Flesh is cheaper than metal in the Coalition’s eyes.”

Drake hoped that having him in the turret with the Mark-25 would be enough to give them the edge they needed to make it to their destination. While he preferred a good long shot from cover and concealment with his rifle, something about having five hundred airburst grenades at his immediate disposal warmed the heart.

As was his habit, Drake, once again, ran through the plan in his head to make sure all objectives were clear and achievable. When the orders handed down to him were not clear or achievable that’s when Drake started to think creatively even before the mission started. “This time around,” he thought, “I can just enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts. “

One of the reasons Drake had confidence in this particular mission was that Rachel’s company and Flint’s two squads made up only a small piece of Task Force Gamma II. Their objective was to take and secure the largest spaceport on the eastern seaboard of the North American continent. All units of Task Force Gamma II would proceed from their individual drop zones throughout the metropolitan area surrounding the spaceport and converge on it in rapid force.

He knew the resistance would be hard and heavy at the spaceport itself, but Drake doubted Earth Republic Command would be as stupid as to waste the resources necessary to protect the city around it too but never underestimate your enemy’s stupidity. There very well could be Earth Republic Infantry around every corner or a civilian with a scoped rifle on the rooftop of his tenement building. Both were just as likely to send you on your way, via one way ticket, to the beyond so Drake planned to keep his eyes open on this ride.

The Taylor landed hard. The struts of her landing gear screeching in protest while her large bay doors started spreading quickly open and filling the cargo bay with sunlight. Firing her engines, the Brightside roared through them, with barely enough clearance to do so, as the doors continued to open. Its automatic weapons system opened fire immediately at anything that moved in her line of fire. Turning whatever it was into either twisted slag or splattered red chunks. Behind her, the Flame Slinger was the second tank to roar out of the Taylor's steel belly.

Its main gun fired, taking the top off of an old style office building made of traditional materials, rather than the sturdier and more commonly used plastisteel. Glass and bits of metal rained downward into the street, clinking harmlessly off its heavy armor as it sped by. Unless the gunner inside that tank had noticed a threat Drake had missed it was as if the gunner wanted to say hello in his own special way to the dear old home world. After all the tanks were clear, the combat cars streaked from the Taylor’s bay, their engines roaring as their drivers poured on the speed.

Drake swept his Mark-25 left and right across his field of fire, searching for a target. From behind him, he could feel the wash of the Taylor’s engines as they lifted off, streaking out of the hot zone.

Artillery streaked across the sky on a direct trajectory for their path, but the tank’s automated defensive systems met the incoming shells in mid-flight easily detonating them above the buildings which surrounded the road. Drake breathed a sigh of relief as he quickly glanced at the fireworks show overhead and then continued looking for the first lucky recipient of a grenade. He was almost disappointed fifteen seconds in because he hadn’t had a chance to obliterate anything yet.

The combat cars raced onward, leaving the slower tanks behind them as the unit split up. One car swept eastward, the other headed to the west, as they left the relatively safe umbrella of the tank’s protective cover Drake’s cold battle hardened instincts took over and the “warrior” stepped to the fore of his mind.

This part of his consciousness had made him the “living legend” he had heard so many whispers about as he passed folks who thought he couldn’t hear them. Drake, the caring empathetic human being, or what was left of that part of him, had no place here on the field of battle so it was locked deep down in the dark recesses of his mind. The truth behind the “legend’s” success is that he had been well trained and had years of experience under his belt. He also had a very strong sense of self-preservation. This meant that, if you wanted him dead, he would kill you before you had a chance to kill him using whatever tactic the situation warranted.

Drake’s car rounded a corner. Its reinforced and armored wheels squealed in protest at the speed the driver had taken the turn at. Drake and the rest of the squad in the combat car found themselves barreling down on a hastily erected blockade while a group of Earth Infantry was still trying to complete its construction.

The driver skillfully hit the brakes using the car’s own momentum to sling it sideways, putting the blockade directly in the sights of Drake’s side gun. As the targets lined up in Drake’s field of fire, his thumbs depressed the Mark-25’s fire controls, sending a burst of grenades at the blockade and the ER. Infantry (as the Coalition ground pounders liked to call them, because that’s where they would be sending them) building it.

As the explosive rounds burst in the air above the troops, the air became filled with swarms of hot fast moving shrapnel, buzzing and tearing into their soft flesh like angry wasps, shredding everything in the immediate area. Two of the ER Infantry managed to dive for cover as the others were cut down where they stood.

Seeing the two survivors scramble for their lives and directly into the path of where the combat car needed to go, the driver of Drakes vehicle punched the accelerator and ran them down, the weight of the vehicle turned them into a red smear on the roadway.

The driver hurled the car back around and wove it between the unfinished and remaining pieces of the blockade. The mini-gun on the other side of the car buzzed to life as the gunner there made sure any surviving Earth defense forces never got a chance to return fire by sweeping the blockade area again as the car moved past.

A missile came tearing from the clouds at the combat car. Drake cursed loudly holding onto handles of the M-25 with all his strength to keep from being tossed into the road as the driver swerved on a dime to avoid it.

Drake’s mind registered that the missile had leveled out when it reached street level turning itself around to continue after them as it flew only yards above the road on a direct path for the rear of his combat car.

“I can’t shake it!” The driver screamed over the squad’s com link as he increased speed in a desperate maneuver to outrun the projectile. Drake, knowing what was about to happen, released his grip on the grenade launcher and jumped from the turret as the doomed combat car passed the front of an old Earth style restaurant’s exterior dining area.

He crashed onto the top of a table. Its wooden construction quickly gave way beneath the force of his impact, but not before Drake felt two ribs on his left side snap like dried kindling. When his tumbling body met with the ground, he broke his right elbow and arm in several places. Continuing to bleed off his momentum the hard way, he rolled through the dining area sending tables, chairs and glass tumblers in every direction shattering his left knee in the process. He was finally stopped as he slammed into the building’s decorative red brick wall.

Searing pain blurred his vision. He looked in the direction the combat car had last been heading. Through his tear-filled eyes, he was barely able to make out a bright flash of orange and white light in the distance as the missile finally caught the combat car and erased it from existence.

Drake, by force of will, ignored the pain and heaved his body into a sitting position grunting as his vision blurred and became dotted with blue flashes. Leaning against the wall, he struggled to stave off unconsciousness by tensing his abdominal muscles like a fighter pilot in would who was taking too many Gs. He found this very hard to do with two broken ribs and under normal circumstances, he would have been totally F.U.B.A.R.ed.

His body was a bleeding pulp from his shattered bones and the damage to the soft tissue around them, but inside his fatigues right breast pocket, under his armor, was an Emergency Nano-syringe. Only the highest ranking, most elite of the Chief Executive Officer’s Rapier Commandos were ever issued them, and even then, only sparingly. Drake had been holding onto his for over a year since he quit their ranks and joined the basic infantry once more.

Drake began digging under his armor with his unbroken arm. Gritting his teeth, he hissed in an involuntary breath of air at the pain as he discovered that he had managed to break two fingers on his left hand during the fall. Getting his hand under his armor he desperately dug for, and found, the syringe.

The solid white injection device measured only two inches long, but inside, swam billions of tiny robots who could repair his wounds but not if his heart stopped beating first. Flicking off the protective cap, he rammed the injector into the exposed flesh of his right thigh, through a ragged hole in his fatigues, and set nanobots free in his bloodstream.

A human body can only take so much and Drake’s body was all too human. As the shock of his injury began to catch up with him, his eyes rolled back in their sockets, until only the whites showed. His last thought was that he hoped he would have another and he slumped against the wall into unconsciousness.