Virtues of War (47 page)

* * *

Quickly she unstrapped, rifle in hand, and stepped aft into the main cabin. The ramp dropped and instantly her troopers were spilling out, firing into the blackness as they went. She reached the edge of the ramp and crouched, rifle raised, to assess.

The air was filled with the thunder of the drop ship’s turrets, firing blindly at the distant buildings of the industrial complex. Her troopers hustled outward in an arc, forming their part of the protective ring. There were no flashes of enemy fire. The air was warm and fresh, with a hint of something like honeysuckle.

She jogged down the ramp, felt her boots touch Centauri soil.

“Sierra-Five clear,” she reported to the pilots. Immediately the ramp behind her began to rise, and the drop ship lifted off with a roar. All around, other drop ships were already beginning to climb into the sky, turrets blazing.

Distant flashes from the ridge indicated Centauri defenses. Orange meteors rained down at random on the perimeter. A fast, metallic form stomped across her peripheral. She swung her rifle to bear but realized it was one of the Spartans, in towering shock troop armor. The Spartan was joined by four companions and they bounded off into the darkness.

She jogged across the level ground—grass, not pavement—checking her forearm display. Her platoon was just reaching the cover of the nearest buildings, as planned. Their job was to hold the road that led into the industrial park, the main road from the west, until all three waves were safely on the ground.

“All units, Drop Command,”
a crackly voice said in her headset,
“first wave in the dirt. ETA second wave one-five mikes.”
Katja reached cover under the nearest building—modern, glass, clean lines—and nodded to Chang in the darkness.

“First wave down. Fifteen minutes to wait.”

“Fifth Platoon in position,” he replied.

She switched to regimental frequency. “Sierra-Zero, Sierra-Five, in position.”

“Sierra-Zero, roger.”
Vici couldn’t be more than five hundred meters away, but there was static on the circuit.

Katja did a quick visual survey. She, Chang, and five troopers were hunkered down at the corner of a building. Another squad of five was dug in against the building opposite her, across the street. The last of the drop ships was just lifting off, still firing at the ridgeline to the north. The twenty hover tanks that had come in the first wave were skimming across the ground in pairs to back up the infantry positions.

The sky was dark with broken clouds. Fast-moving lights raced through the pockets of naked stars.

Her forearm display revealed Rao and four more squads guarding the intersection one block west. The remaining four squads were scattered in sniper positions on the second floor of her building and the building opposite. The low, rumbling whirr of two hover tanks moving into position behind her gave added confidence.

There was scattered fire from the ridge, and a few orbital bombardments in response. But they quickly faded into the background as she peered around the corner of the building, activating telescopic night-vision, and surveyed the road before her. The industrial park stretched for four blocks and the road continued into the countryside. There was nothing to see within the limits of her sight.

There was a gentle breeze from the west, cool against her exposed mouth and chin. The road itself was some kind of short, tough vegetation, almost like a golf green. The Centauris had always worked to minimize their ecological footprint, not wanting to repeat the devastation of the Earth.

One of the troopers stood up and looked around the corner over her head. She heard him exhale in frustration.

“Let’s go, you bastards,” he said.

“Easy, trooper,” Chang said. “You’ll get your chance.”

Faint roars overhead drew everyone’s eyes up, but before they could be spotted the unknown craft were already gone.

“Is that the second wave?” the trooper asked.

“No,” Katja said, “not yet. Probably our strike fighters.”

Static crackled in her headset, the words unintelligible. She checked her watch—about the right time for the second wave to be launching from
Normandy
. Her concern, however, was for the sudden lack of communications with orbit.

“Sierra-Zero, Sierra-Five. Comms fading with Drop Command; assess probable jamming.”

“This is Sierra-Zero … units hold position until … wave … assault on ridge …”
Vici’s voice was barely readable through the static.

Katja tapped Chang’s armored chest.

“We’re being jammed—they’re coming. I’m moving forward to brief Rao. Hold this position at all costs.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Cover me.”

A quick look around the corner, and she slipped out into the road. She paused for a moment, rifle up to her eye line. No threat. She ported the weapon and sprinted along the edge of the building. Her armor plates clacked softly with her rapid steps, her breathing quick and steady.

She reached the end of the building, waving to her troopers on the far side of the intersection. One of them waved back. She peered down the street to the right, then around the corner to her left. Clear. Twenty long strides and she was across, crouching down next to Rao, forced to take a moment to get her breathing under control—too much time in zero-g.

Through gasps she issued her sitrep.

“Comms with Drop Command are jammed, and we’re losing local comms as well. Each squad will have to act independently. Your orders are to defend this road and keep the drop zone clear. Hold this ground.”

Armor clicked as the troopers shifted in anticipation.

Rao glanced skyward. “How are things in orbit?”

“Not our concern. Let Fleet—” Her words were cut off by an ominous whistling overhead that grew quickly into a roar. The troopers threw themselves flat. Seconds later, the ground shook as a chunk of the road one block north of their position blasted into the air. Another whistling roar, and the road exploded half a block north.

Troopers scrambled away. Katja blocked them.

“Stand your ground! This road is where the enemy is coming from!”

Another artillery shell smashed down, this time into one of the buildings at the intersection. Shrapnel rained down on them as two more explosions rocked the street. Katja stayed on her stomach, shouting at the troopers to hold firm. The barrage increased to a steady pounding, where all she could do was bury her head and hang on.

When the shelling stopped, the intersection was clouded with dust and debris. The artillery strikes had moved east, into the central square of the landing zones. Huge holes were torn out of the grassy street. Katja forced her shaky legs to push up.

“Looks like they shifted targets,” someone said. “Giving us a break!”

Katja doubted such a Centauri kindness. The audio in her helmet was overloaded, and she lifted one ear to clear some dirt. As she did, she heard a new noise, one which she knew only too well. She peeped one eye around the corner. And immediately recoiled into a crouch.

The corner of the building above her shattered under the force of the rocket impact, showering the troopers with glass.

“APRs! Set grenades! Fire as one!”

She rolled clear as three troopers took aim through the shattered wall. They fired. Across the intersection, she saw the other squads coordinating their attack. Rockets smashed into them as she watched. Troopers fell and didn’t rise. Her squad loosed another volley of grenades. Rockets exploded all around her in response.

She hit the ground hard. Lifting her head, she struggled to rise. Through the holes in the building she saw the flash of a silver hull as the lead APR advanced. She raised her rifle and tried to aim for a weapons pod. Through the wreckage and darkness it was impossible to be precise. She fired two at the center of mass.

The body of the APR exploded backward, limbs spinning off in all directions. Katja stared in shock—her grenades hadn’t done that. A second APR just came into view before it was gutted and smashed. Then she heard a familiar, rumbling whirr and saw one of the hover tanks emerge from the eastern end of the intersection.

Its giant rail-gun fired again. She heard another explosion. Rockets struck the armored beast with little effect. It fired again. Crawling forward, Katja peered through the wreckage of her corner and saw three APRs in rapid retreat. The tank sailed over the craters in the road, easily pursuing its quarry.

Lights above caught her eye and she saw the massed drop ships thundering down to deliver the second wave. Artillery pounded the landing zone. A towering column of flame indicated at least one drop ship that wasn’t making it back.

Troopers were picking themselves up around her. She looked down the western road again, just barely able to make out the last of the APRs in the distance. The hover tank had advanced another block, firing almost leisurely. She was just taking a deep, calming breath when she saw two dazzling lights erupt in the distant sky down the road. The lights elongated into streaks too fast to follow, striking down on the tank.

It reeled back from the explosive, double impact, turret popping off like a toy. The flaming main body spun slowly before digging into the ground and flipping over.

“Holy shit!” someone said.

Seconds later, a new form emerged from the darkness, flying low over the street. Slim, silver body. Stubby wings with weapons pods. Another pair of blinding streaks launched forth from those pods as it roared overhead. Orange reflections off one of the building windows suggested the death of a second Terran tank.

AAR—an anti-armor robot.

Welcome to the Centauri homeworld.

T
homas grabbed his console as the deck shook again. Far below, he could see flames leaping out against the stars where air was escaping from another gash in
Normandy
’s hull. Wiping sweaty palms on his legs he surveyed the battle again.

The third drop wasn’t even down and the EF was getting creamed. Surface batteries had popped up in every town and settlement, and with only
Jutland
free to protect the invasion ships, the three behemoths were targets in a shooting gallery. With the third drop now in atmo,
Jutland
had maneuvered beneath her charges to physically shield them from the surface. Even so the pounding was relentless.

Artemis
’s air wing was fully engaged with planetary sentries, and the carrier itself was faring poorly from the surface fire. The destroyers had managed to dispatch the two attacking Space Guard cutters and were adding their minimal bombardment abilities to the effort of taking out surface batteries.

The three cruisers had all taken position over their respective landing zones, but they were so busy fighting off missile attacks that surface bombardment was less a priority than self-defense. That was bad for the troops on the ground, but no ship could ignore its own protection.

King Alfred
, in particular, was getting hammered.

Orbital Platform Three was a scattering cloud of twisted metal shards, thanks to the stealth ship
Asp.
Her sister ship
Sidewinder
had made the initial attempt, but the platform’s anti-stealth defenses had been unexpectedly effective—
Sidewinder
had ceased to exist in a faint ripple against the stars.

Nor had anyone thought that the huge platforms could move. But even now Thomas could detect the two sister platforms coming over opposite horizons to join the fray.
Asp
had reported tremendous difficulties getting any sort of tracking in this gravimetric landscape, whereas the platforms seemed optimized for the environment.

Thomas stole a glance at the rest of the command team. His AAW counterpart was going nonstop, directing the fighter battle and prioritizing defenses against incoming missiles. The ASW controller was busy making calculations and conversing with other units. The operations officer was giving a charged briefing to Commodore Chandler on the surface and orbital battles. And Thomas…

He stared impotently at his screens. What could he do? Every ship was engaged in close combat. Self-defense would protect them to a degree, but the attacks would eventually wear them down. They couldn’t withdraw with three regiments on the ground. The two biggest threats were the inbound orbital platforms, but the entire task force didn’t possess enough missiles to destroy those leviathans.

“AVW!” Commander Erikson shouted. “Report your status!”

With a jump he reassessed his threats.

“AVW condition red!” he replied. “We can survive the surface fire and robot sentries, but those orbital platforms will wipe us out.” He checked his display. “They’ll be in range in fifteen minutes.”

The OpsO was red in the face.

“What’s your fucking recommendation, Kane?”

Thomas felt his mouth drop open as he scrambled for an answer. Recommendation? Destroy the damn orbital platforms. He didn’t know what miracle the OpsO expected him to conjure. Maybe two battleships and a line of cruisers could do it, but not the ragged assets he had at his disposal.

“Torpedoes,” Chandler said quietly.

The ASW controller shook his head. “Sir, the stealths can’t get close enough. We’ve already lost
Sidewinder
, and
Asp
is pulling back.”

“Then use the Hawks.” Chandler stared at the display as he spoke. “Every last one of them.”

“The Hawk torpedoes aren’t designed for brane attacks. They aren’t strong enough to force a gravimetric collapse on something that big.”

Chandler glared at him, but the ASW controller stood his ground. The larger torpedoes carried by stealths might have a chance, but Hawk torpedoes against such a large target was like throwing stones at a castle wall.

“Then where are your stealth ships?” Chandler said dangerously.

“
Asp
is withdrawing due to damage. The other two are unlocated.”

Thomas guessed that they’d already been destroyed in their attempts to attack the other orbital platforms. But both Chandler and Erikson seemed to have forgotten he was there. He forced himself to speak, before he was dismissed from his own warfare responsibility.