Opening Moves (67 page)

“We're clear!” Sergeant Masters bellowed. “Area secure.”

Upon confirmation, first squad dropped their pose and began to unload the gear for the mission's mobile command post. Lt. Jones moved off, walking down the hill to try and find who was in charge of the camp.

“'Clear', my ass,” 'Grunt' Kayser whistled through his teeth. “Just look at that mess!”

Samantha had to agree to her comrade's brief but succinct assessment. A vast tent city covered the nearby hills and fields like a cancer. Smoke rose from thousands of open fires, tattered flags of nations and clans and formerly noble houses flapped in the wind, and thousands of hollow-faced people crowded the spaces in between which light rain had turned into a sea of mud. There were tall Érenni and sturdy Tuathaan and more refugees from at least half a dozen alien races she had trouble naming.

The people here gave the landed dropships a wide berth which was no doubt an effect of Alpha's appearance. The infantry armor they wore was basic stuff compared to the airborne equipment they'd usually use, but it got the message of 'Don't screw with us' across just as well. Behind them medics from JOHNSTON stepped out of one of the other droppers, wrinkling their noses. That also was a definitive advantage of their armor and helmets. Sammy shuddered at the thought of how tens of thousands of unwashed alien and human refugees would smell and decided that it'd be quite sufficient to experience Tanith from behind her rebreather mask.

Outskirts of Tanash Kutur

Tanith, Independent Star System, Pact of Ten Suns.

One Day Later.

After twenty-four hours down on the planet Samantha had serious doubts as to whether anyone really would have needed that huge liner the Euros had provided for the mission. There had been, at best, a few hundred human refugees in the camp they had landed at, and a few quick drops at some of the other camps had revealed similar pictures there. Which, if she was honest, really wasn't that much of a surprise to anyone. There were few human
refugees
, period. It was the local established expat community that was turning this whole trip into backbreaking work. Of them, there were a couple ten thousand, many of whom conveniently lived at Tanash Kutur. Which, again, was where all the convenience ended.

“
You know, when we made the drop I somehow missed the part where it mentioned we'd have to canvass door to door and play babysitter,” Grunt sniffed.

“
That'd be because you were asleep,” Kowalsky noted dryly.

“
Which didn't come as a surprise to anyone,” Smiley giggled girlishly.

“
Keep the chatter down and concentrate on your surroundings,” Sergeant Masters reminded them in a surprisingly soft tone. “You don't have to like the job as long as you keep doing it. And those people will thank you one day once they've realized you were the valiant ladies and gentlemen who pulled their asses from the line of fire.”

“
From your lips to God's ears, sarge,” Grunt muttered sourly from the back of their patrol column.

They had been moving through the crowded suburbs of Tanash Kutur since shortly after dawn in an effort to liaise with the expat community. The experience so far had been sobering. While humans on Tanith clustered together pretty much like any other minority, the sight of Union soldiers kept more doors closed than it opened. Most people living here had come to Tanith for precisely one reason, and that was leaving the Union, the Alliance, and all that ballast behind.

Samantha was convinced that more than one face who had sent them away today also found itself on some most wanted list back home for past crimes. Fat chance of getting that lot to move, especially if prison or worse was waiting for them. But the majority of people they met simply didn't see any need to move, and Samantha sympathized with them.

The man who had who had been a corporate drone back home and now owned a booming bar. The divorced mother of four who had fled to Tanith and now ran a successful consulting business. The hundreds and thousands more who had found new homes and new livelihoods here.

And now the past came knocking on their front doors in the form of Alpha Platoon, First Squad, and asked them to throw that all away because somebody more than fifty light-years away was fighting a war that actually didn't concern them – or Tanith, for that matter – one bit. Saying that the deck was stacked against their mission would have been an understatement. There was no clear and present danger and therefore no desire for the long-time residents to pack their belongings because the powers that be said so.

Some of the better informed expats had been rather explicit about the whole situation. One fellow had sneered at them and told them right away that he would rather bite off his own... foot than come with them just so Secretary Randolph won some brownie points for a future bid to the presidency.

“Oh, come on, you couldn't possibly believe that's true!” their guide Alyosha, a forty-something looking Eurasian woman, had exclaimed.

“
Why not?” the man had snorted. “It's been what that political Rasenni newsfeed I've subscribed to has said and they've always been spot on so far.”

“
Man, half of whatever they say probably gets lost in translation,” Grunt had interjected impatiently. “We're here to protect you from murderous cat people from outer space!”

“
Fat chance of that one,” had been the response. “My Rasenni's fluent.”

“
You speak Imperial standard?” Grunt had ogled him like a circus attraction. The Rasenni language was commonly seen as the gold standard of languages one could learn.

“
Yeah, I mean, why would I?” the expat had rolled his eyes at him. “It's just the most spoken language in the known universe, Marine.”

That in turn had nearly caused an ugly outburst by Grunt for being called a marine, but the expat had slammed his door shut before the Sarge, Alyosha, or the cheeky soldier could have gotten another word in.

Well, after that episode the squad had agreed that if Grunt Kayser was to ever open his big trap in front of a 'mission objective' again without the explicit orders of the Sarge, they had permission to strangle him. “I'll write in my report that you had an unfortunate accident with your shoelaces,” Masters had growled.

During the past five hours they had probably talked to two hundred people and had rather little to show for it. Most simply didn't believe they were in any danger, and most of the conversations were them trying to explain to the expats that even though they were Union soldiers they were here as part of an international relief and evac mission to protect them.

Samantha had the impression that the only ones willing to leave were those who looked as if they hadn't been very lucky here on Tanith anyway. The local authorities weren't much help either as they were happy that part of their refugee crisis had just become somebody else's refugee crisis.

Moving through the crowded and narrow streets lined by two or three story tall apartment buildings and small enterprises, surrounded by humans and aliens alike, Sammy felt the time rushing by as a routine set in. Their guide would lead them to human houses, the inhabitants would need convincing, most the time it wouldn't work, they'd move on to the next place. Rinse and repeat.

Alyosha was busy explaining to an elderly couple that 'no, the Union hadn't invaded the place while they had been sleeping' when Sergeant Masters stiffened, his hand clasping the right side of his helmet. A moment later he was walking away at a quick pace.

“
Change of plans, First Squad! We're moving back to the landing zone, at the double. Move it, people!”

Sammy and the rest fell in after him at a light run.

Alyosha had trouble catching up with them.

“
What's going on? Where are you going?”

“
We're getting you onto one of the shuttles. Then we'll leave, too,” Masters explained dispassionately.

“
But why?” the local guide demanded. “We've barely scratched the surface of the community here. There're thousands more!”

“
I just had the LT on the line, Alyosha. The Dominion has entered the system.”

U.V.S. JOHNSTON, North American Union Navy Cruiser

Tanith, Independent Star System, Pact of Ten Suns.

A stream of shuttles hurried towards the bays of the sleek old liner, each of the small crafts symbolized by a small green icon until it merged with a similar, yet far larger icon. Captain Beaufort's gaze followed each and every one of them with growing concern. Eleven minutes ago thirty Dominion vessels had transitioned back into normspace near the edge of the system. They were on a recon-in-force type mission and they took their sweet time in assessing the situation, something Beaufort was extremely grateful for. It gave him and his colleagues some more time to get their people off the ground and the hell out of here.

“
Status, commander?”

“
The GRANADA is taking on her last shuttle at the moment, sir. She's got around five thousand eight hundred civilians aboard,” Therese Ranaissa reported from her station.

Beaufort nodded silently, and his focus shifted to the Dominion vanguard. And it was a vanguard, he had no doubts about that. You didn't send thirty cruisers and escorts into a system just to sneak a peek. Once their curiosity was satisfied one of them would re-transition back into foldspace, make his report and return with the real deal in tow. They didn't have much time left.

“Get me Captain Summers on the comm, Therese.”

“
Aye, sir.” She motioned to the cruiser's communications officer. A second later he gave her a thumbs up sign, and the main screen next to Beaufort's console switched from a sensor readout to a look into the liner's bridge.

Captain Annegret Summers looked up from a report in her hands. The worry on her features mirrored his own.

“Captain Beaufort.” A wry smile danced across her lips. “Seems like this little trip of ours just got interesting.”

“
A bit too interesting, if you ask me,
mon amie
.” Beaufort's voice was level despite the smile he gave the merchant skipper. “What's your status?”

Summers punched a query into her console and frowned. “My crew's debarking the last two shuttles right now. In a minute or two we should have all the civilians out of the bays.”

“Good. Prime your drives and get ready to move. The minute you've got the refugees stored safely away we'll make a run for the edge of the gravity well and get you the hell out of here. I've got a feeling it'll get ugly in this neighborhood rather quickly now.”

Summers' eyes flickered to her own sensor plot and she grimaced. “Couldn't agree more with you there, Captain Beaufort. Starting pre-launch routines now. GRANADA out.” With a brisk nod Summers' face vanished off the screen.

“Sir, we still have droppers and people back on the planet,” Beaufort's XO cautioned.

“
I know, XO. Commander Kapila, have you listened in?”

The face of the
Long March 46
-class missile destroyer appeared on screen. “I got the gist of it, and we've been monitoring the situation closely,” Subhash Kapila answered. The two massive sensor domes put the small destroyer on an equal or possibly even better footing than the
Leyte
-class JOHNSTON. “It appears as if the Ashani have gotten a good enough picture by now. They've started to engage,” he pointed out.

Beaufort's head rocked to the side to where the bridge's main plot was located. There he met Commander Ranaissa's eyes.

“The Dominion force has split up into hunter-killer groups and is going after Tanithan installations and merchant shipping in the outer system, skipper.”

“
The could be just the window of opportunity we need,” Beaufort mused and the Alliance officer from the Indian subcontinent on the other end of the line nodded. “Commander Kapila, we need to escort the liner out of here. However, I've still got people down on the planet, and it'll take some of them at least thirty minutes or more to reach their LZs. Once the GRANADA is safely on her way I intend to execute a fly-by pick up and get the rest of my people back aboard. There's no point in escorting her out into the fold. She can outrun almost every ship in existence out there, and should she run into concerted resistance, well...”

The destroyer's commanding officer nodded in understanding. If the liner did run into an Ashani blockade force her only chance was to surrender and hope for the best. Trying to fight their way through it with just a cruiser and a destroyer would most likely get them all killed.

“Since we don't know what the situation will be once the liner's out of here: care to find out whether your little ship can keep up with a
Leyte
-class on full speed?”

Kapila flashed a smile. “I hope you know a good bar on Orion Colony because I'll insist on you buying us the good stuff once my 'little ship' leaves you in the dust.”