Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (29 page)

Once away, and his warriors spread among the cover of boulders near the side of the valley, Gofdar paused to examine the clanship. It had not yet ruptured into an orange fireball from incoming heavy plasma cannon fire, or from more missiles. He saw that the damaged section of the clanship stealth coating was well below the bulge of the midsection, in its shadow, and the pilot had rotated the craft to position the exposed hull scrapes closest to the nearby steep ridge face, not exposed to orbital radar from directly overhead. The upper electromagnetic stealth capability was still effective. Of course, their body armor also had stealth mode active, otherwise a couple of thousand warriors would be extremely noticeable.

“I think the humans will not detect us from space. An efficient landing.” That came as close to outright praise as the sub leader would give to the pilot, who already knew he’d done a masterful bit of flying and positioning of the craft.

The pilot, Fordol, offered the information from his last vision of the sensors and navigational screen, depicting the other seven clanships. “My leader, we are closer to the approaching human forces than any of the other clanships. The humans did not retreat as far as we thought. Our sensors displayed at least six clanships were still flying, to reach the selected blocking points. Kadrot’s clanship, the one most to the north, was not seen on my display. Either they were destroyed or there were too many ridges between us for the signal.”

The best strategy was to consider that clanship lost, and that the small northern pass was open. This was something the humans would know if they had destroyed that particular blocking force. Using his battlefield memory of the terrain, something all of his warriors had studied before embarking, every warrior knew exactly where they needed to go. “The small northern passage splits from this main route, but deeper into the higher mountains. We can block that escape path if we reach that place before the humans can all pass through. They will be forced to move slower. We will need to move fast.” Left unsaid was the fact that they would have to face the bulk of the retreating human forces alone. This could prove to be a great battle, mentioned in the histories.

After a brief communication with his weapons master, the force of over two thousand twenty armored warriors slung their plasma rifles, and started running west at nearly twenty miles per hour. The powered armor actually slowed them down slightly, but the added assistance and suit cooling would keep them fresher when they arrived. With stealth active, they were like a ripple of translucent waves splitting around boulders, and coursing along the cleared sides of the valley’s central four-lane roadway. They had what amounted to just over fifteen miles to cover.

****

Greeves and Reynolds were deposited at a hidden tunnel entrance in a box canyon in the southern foothills of the Small Urals, as they were generally called on Poldark. Thanking the shuttle pilot for the ride, Reynolds triggered a hidden opening in the canyon as the shuttle lifted.

As they walked down a ramp to the tunnel they planned to use, the interior lights activated. Sarge checked his suit’s built in navigation system and map. “My visor map shows there’s an underground parking area at the end of this tunnel, less than a quarter mile away. We might find an electric cart or ground car there. We still have over five miles to travel to reach the command hub below the central peak.”

Dim light strips automatically switched on ahead of them, glowing softly as they went down the ramp. Their own ripper low light adaptation would have allowed them to see very well, although the suit visors offered map projections, sensor readings, and time and distance measurements. When they reached the wide place in the tunnel for parking vehicles they saw they were in luck.

“We have two electric carts, both are charged,” Sarge noted as he looked over the two squad sized elongated carts, parked over inductive floor charging plates. Greeves had ignored them, walking to where the garage down ramp would lead up to the valley roadway. He stopped between a four wheeled ground car, and a rounded tracked vehicle, with a vertical pointing plasma gun on its back section.

“Sarge, you ever see one of these? How fast is it compared to a cart or ground car?”

“Those are new to me, but I saw some on the remote monitors of the street fighting in each of the cities. I heard them called ladybugs. They should be as fast as the ground car in the smooth floor tunnel, and faster than a cart. Why?”

“I like that three barrel plasma gun on the rear swivel mount. Do you know how they work? We might like a bigger gun than our suit weapons when we get to where we’re going.”

“Let me link to the local network. You can do it too.” He walked over to the nearest glow strip on a sidewall and touched it with his gauntlet. His suit AI used the authorization Caldwell had uploaded to their suits, and Reynolds was connected to the central AI at the spec ops command hub. After that, he could step away and remain linked now that he was identified.

Thad duplicated the action, and instantly saw an axillary link indictor glowing in a corner of his visor display. “How’d you know to do that?”

“Duh. This is a new type of armor I’m wearing, but it ain’t the first set I’ve ever worn in these type tunnels. I assumed the com protocol was placed in our suit AIs, along with our authorizations from Caldwell. Now we can download an operation manual for a ladybug.”

In seconds, they had the operator’s manual, which had considerable pictorial help. Greeves touched a spot near a narrow split in the rounded hump in the back, and the clamshell opened smoothly, revealing the weapon support column, a fusion bottle, and racks of feeder ammunition rods, for generating the plasma bolts for each of the three gun barrels.

Reaching in, Greeves touched the activation stud, and the weapon came alive. The clustered gun barrels lowered to horizontal aimed directly to the front, instantly linked to his suit AI. He saw that the sight recital showed the wall ahead, where the barrels were aimed, with the gun in safe mode. Checking the manual, he realized he could lock the barrel to his own vision, and aim wherever he chose to look. His AI handled the coordinate translation for the powered gun mount. He looked around the garage, aiming the sight at various points. It was fast and responsive. All he needed to do to fire was to think the trigger command to his suit. That, and shove three of the four foot long metal rods into the waiting slots that fed the three laser vaporization chambers.

“I like it. Let’s take this for our ride.”

“You want to drive or ride in back?” Reynolds asked.

“Why split up?” Thad asked. “Either of us can control the cannon from a mile away, so why not both sit up front?”

Sarge considered the operator manual pictures. “With our smaller form fitting suits I think we’d both fit in the front cab. The PU body armor is too bulky for that, but we’ll still be a bit crowded. However, the gunner needs to shove in reload rods from in back.”

“Nothing to shoot at down here and I want to see where we’re going. We get two hundred shots per feeder rod anyway. I’ll load up before we go.”

“Use your visor to see what’s in front, you knuckle head. The cab doesn’t have a see through windshield anyway, they use a video feed to see outside the armor shell, except for the two rifle slots to shoot through.”

“No. I want to keep an eye on your crappy driving. You get in first then I’ll climb inside.”

“Crappy driving,” muttered Reynolds. “It’s a damned near straight tunnel,” he grumbled.

Sure enough, they both fit in front, if Reynolds sat a bit to the left side, but they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Luckily, leg and headroom was ample, for the bulkier PU armor. The two gun slits were positioned high enough so they could bend to look out of them if they shifted their heads down slightly, and their built in energy weapons would target whatever they could see on the inside of their visor screen.

Slipping the unfamiliar throttles slightly too far forward, the ladybug jolted ahead before Reynolds pulled the steering yoke to the left to control the tracks. They clipped the rear fender of the ground car as they grated and screeched past.

“Perhaps I should drive, and you ride in back,” Thad proposed. “Caldwell will bill us for that repair.”

“Shut the hell up,” was Sarge’s reply, as he swung wildly around the two electric carts and accelerated down the glow strip illuminated tunnel. Thad’s chuckle sounded in his earpiece.

****

Sergeant Skalsgard knew they had stepped in it big time, when he saw the eight clanships headed for the Small Urals. From his observation post on one of the peaks overlooking the roads, which passed through the ancient mountains, he realized the Krall were turning the tables on the First Army. Up until now, the planned fallback had drawn out the over eager warriors from the minor clans exactly as planned. Those Krall, largely on foot, with a handful of Dragons with them, currently were dashing themselves against the first of the stronger fortified bastions, where they were trying to beat their way through the heavy fire pouring down from the high ground.

The second and last major fallback point was around and below Skalsgard, and along the ridge tops. This was where a few thousand troops, in prepared bunkers with escape tunnels, were expected to hold back the Krall as long as they could. The bulk of the half million troops would pass below Skalsgard along two major interior valleys on either side of his post, racing to escape the confines of the surrounding ridges. The lead elements, troops riding in two columns of trucks, with various mobile artillery, laser and plasma batteries mixed with them, had started passing his highest of the observation posts.

They were soon to successively split up and pass out through eight different routes on the eastern side of the Urals, staying well ahead of the pursuing Krall. The warriors, even in armor, could scale the steep sided ridges and sweep along the tops, overtaking the retreating main body below them if allowed. They were to be kept under continuous fire, and swept from the exposed ridge tops from a hundred prepared positions. After the columns were clear of Skalsgard’s unit, preset charges would bring down avalanches on the roadways when the enemy tried to use them. It wouldn’t stop the warriors, but the Dragons and artillery defense system couldn’t go with them.

Skalsgard turned to his corporal, who was talking to Turbulence Control, providing visual links from various suit visors linked to this post, to feed images to the AIs that were controlling the seeker missiles in the absence of radar. The clanships had just roared by them, flying below the higher peaks for concealment. Their passing had shaken rocks loose with their supersonic shockwaves.

“They need to knock some of them down to leave passes out of here open.” He shouted to his overstressed corporal, who was already doing all he could do. It was redundant, but he felt better for pointing out the obvious. Watching the back door being slammed on the troops below was too stressful to just sit quietly and watch. He and his men had escape tunnels, which would lead them out of the Urals in multiple directions. As usual, they were mined, with Krall detector sensors activated that would deny the enemy use of them.

Barely had he completed his frustrated commentary when he saw two widely spaced billows of orange flame and black smoke in the distance. “Yes! Two down. Let’s get some more.” Only there were no more explosions, and one blast looked too small to suggest complete destruction of a clanship.

He stepped in on the corporal’s link to speak directly to Turb Control. “The smoke column rising above the northernmost pass tells me you probably destroyed that ship. The smoke column that rose over the central pass seems too small. I don't think that was a kill.”

“Sergeant,” sounded the irritatingly reassuring lieutenant’s voice, “the telemetry tells me we brought it down, because it definitely did not continue to the eastern end of the canyon. You can bet that both of them are gone.”

Skalsgard thought of a way to avoid the appearance of doubting the officer’s word. “Sir, we need to know how much wreckage is blocking the road before the main column gets that far. Can you send me your orbital surveillance to tell us where any burning debris is located along the valley floor?”

This was a bit of a trick question. Debris from a single clanship couldn’t possibly close the entire valley. Such wreckage would only create a slight delay to clear pieces, or it could be bypassed. However, the experienced sergeant didn’t want to sound like he was questioning the second Louie’s strong assertion that his unit’s missiles had killed both ships.

There was a brief silence, as if mute were selected when the officer apparently repeated the question to someone at the other end. A disparaging comment was no doubt included.

Background noise soon resumed on the link, and so did Lieutenant Smithers reassuring condescending voice, sporting a Hub world accent that contrasted with the rustic speech of the Poldark born Skalsgard. “I can confirm that the road appears completely clear visually after the smoke cleared, and radar from a heavy cruiser detected no debris your people will need to clear away. There are also no brush fires.” He didn’t send the orbital images requested, but his description was adequate to help the sergeant reach a conclusion.

“Thank you Sir. Madigan Post One out.” He turned again to his corporal.