Conquest of Earth (Stellar Conquest Series) (4 page)

Cheng had always been loyal to the Empire. Only the most dedicated Underlings gained such prestigious postings as this, with the awesome responsibility of controlling defensive weapons systems. He’d been well educated on the dark times before the Empire had arrived to bring peace and enlightenment to humanity, putting an end to its fractiousness and strife.

Now, everyone lived in harmony. Everyone knew his place – Meme, Blend, and Underling, fulfilling the natural order. This, Cheng had been raised to take as gospel.

Why then did the doubts gnaw at him?

Cheng patted Tama on the shoulder before walking over to stand next to O’Rourke. “What do you think, sir?” he eventually asked.

“I think we are losing this fight,” O’Rourke said even more quietly. “The rebel’s dreadnought is a ghost, moving from place to place at will, and even the Weapons on Luna failed to destroy it. They have dozens of nuclear missiles and we have none. We have lost half our defensive strength. The Yellows and those of the Pure Race are dead or soon to be. In return, we have destroyed a few fighters, and only because it seems the enemy is being less than ruthless.”

“Less than ruthless?”

O’Rourke turned to Cheng. “With the power they have displayed, the rebels could have taken their time and wiped all twenty-four Sentinels out before starting on the main bases. Instead, they seem to be sparing us unless we threaten them directly.”

“What does that mean, sir?”

O’Rourke stared at Cheng for a long, long moment, searching his eyes before leaning over to speak in his ear. “It means we may be on the wrong side.”

Within Cheng, a lifetime of indoctrination warred against the facts, and against curiosity about the rebel humans, the ones not under the Empire’s rule. He knew Underlings should be happy with their lot, but he also knew he had little chance to ascend. A post like this, or perhaps to become a member of a communal council, was the highest he could expect. Real power was reserved for Blends, and the Pure Race above them. Suddenly, it seemed unfair.

Remembering the history classes and the documentaries of the bad old days, guilty fascination surged again in his mind. Instead of merely disgusting him as the stories of crime and misrule were meant to do, the tales also drew him in with their human drama and passion. Unlike the staid and boring times of today – up until the enemy appeared, anyway – the days when humanity ruled itself seemed to teem with opportunities for advancement and excitement, adventure and romance.

Cheng could see O’Rourke watching him closely, and he realized his commander had revealed himself with his question. Men had been executed for saying less, and now he must decide how to respond.

He thought about Delivery Worker Second Class Brenda Gleeson, and how her calves flexed as she rode her bicycle through the tunnels beneath the rebuilt city of York, England, where he had grown up. He remembered how their pairing had been denied by the Council on Mating and Breeding…and how shortly afterward he had been sent to man this orbiting Sentinel, so far from her lovely legs.

Brenda’s memory made Cheng’s decision surprisingly easy, and his heart hammered as he crossed the line. “I believe you are right, sir,” he breathed. “But we must be careful.”

O’Rourke nodded slowly, and took his hand from his jacket pocket. Cheng suddenly realized the captain’s sidearm was not in its holster. It must have been in O’Rourke’s hand, pointed at his belly in case of a wrong answer. Cheng looked around the small command center, thinking of the two dozen humans throughout the Sentinel station, and his guts churned again. Some would join them, but others would stay loyal to the Empire, and would have to be dealt with.

“Sorry, sir,” she said. “I don’t have anything on the assault landing. They should already be down, but the rock and the plasma is blocking the view and cutting off all signals.” She turned toward Rick Johnstone at CyberComm.

Rick shrugged apologetically, worry creasing his face. “She’s right. I got no contact. They’re on their own.”

Absen sat back stoically, wishing he could do something that mattered. Ford continued to take desultory potshots at any target that presented itself, but at this range hits were few and far between. Even the Weapon below would hardly have been able to light a match at twenty million klicks.

“Bring us in on conventional drive to five million, outside of the Weapon’s targeting arc,” Absen said. Maybe the flare of
Conquest
’s engines would attract some fire away from the Crows, though those should be rapidly running away to rendezvous in deep space with the grabships and the refueling pinnace
Conquest
had dropped off hours ago.

At least at five million klicks
Conquest
’s weapons might do a bit more than tickle the enemy. He’d settle for blinding them, disrupting their systems, hopefully leaving humans intact. It wasn’t a body count he wanted: it was hearts and minds. This assault was ultimately more about recruiting reinforcements than it was a military operation.

***

“Ten seconds!” Bull heard Flight Warrant Butler snap over the Marine frequency. “Breach is open and clear, but we got no data on the LZ.” The assault sled shuddered and bucked with hard deceleration.

“Crash protocols,” Sergeant Major Repeth ordered. In response, seventy-eight suits of Avenger battle armor froze in place, clamping down on the bodies of the Marines and Ryss inside them.

“Taking fire,” Butler snarled as he wrenched the assault sled down to a slewing, shuddering slide across the subterranean floor of the enemy base. Something caught the edge of the heavily armored shuttle and it rolled several times, finally coming to rest upside-down and half buried in a bulkhead.

“
Everyone out,
go go go!
” Bull roared into the comm as his suit came under his control again. The rear of the sled opened like a flower with four petals. One petal dropped to the floor while the other three spread wide, allowing easy exit. The front could do the same, but right now it was obstructed.

Bull rolled to his feet and watched as the rest of the command squad did the same. He let Reaper get the people moving as he checked the overall HUD picture.

“Come on, Massimo, get moving,” Reaper grunted as she helped the heavy weapons team leader unbolt his semi-portables from what was now the overhead. In the light gravity, the lack of dexterity from her gauntlets counted more than the mass of the crew-served weapons. “Butler, get that Recluse up.” The big spider-shaped battle drone, folded into its external pod, was the closest thing they had to an armored vehicle.

“We’re upside-down, Reap,” Butler replied. “The sled’s sitting on top of it.”

“Let’s fix that, shall we?” Repeth replied. “You four – yes, you, you, you and you,” she pointed, “and you too, Bull, get out and grab the edge of the sled. We’re going to roll it over.” Like people tipping a ground car, the six lined up and slid their armored hands beneath it. “All together, one, two, three,
lift
.”

Servos groaned as six tons of powered armor, backed by the Marines’ internal cybernetics and nanotechnology, levered the heavy sled upward. Had Io’s gravity not been approximately that of Luna, about one sixth of a G, this would have been impossible, but they manhandled the vehicle, rolling it crunching over wreckage until it fell with a crash onto its long ferrocrystal skids.

Exposed and free, the armored blister housing the Recluse battle drone burst open as Butler blew its explosive bolts, and the mechanical spider unfolded itself to stand next to the personnel carrier. It lifted one of its two small waldoes to wave, and then unlimbered a heavy pulse cannon and spun it around in a three-sixty as Butler tested out its systems. “Good to go,” the pilot said.

Suddenly an explosion knocked down one of Massimo’s gunners, and Bull dove for cover, his plasma rifle belching sunfire while the rest of the Marines hit the deck. “Reaper, Massimo, get those semis working while I cover you!” Looking through his HUD, Bull fired and moved toward the next sled, where line Marines already blazed away into the haze from kneeling positions. He tried to tell what they were shooting at even as carets appeared in front of his eyes marking the enemy positions, the suit’s systems backtracking the shots. Behind him, the Recluse picked its way over the rubble, its gun swiveling to fire above the big Marine’s head.

In front of him, one of Bull’s Marines spun and fell, her weapon and the arm holding it blown to bits by some kind of high-velocity shell. The hard suit would tourniquet the limb, pumping her full of drugs and extra nano. In a few minutes, she should be back on her feet, and assuming she survived the next hour or two, in a few months she would have her arm back, courtesy of the Eden Plague.

“Keep low and use your HUDs, diggers,” Bull snarled as he took his own advice, placing his targeting reticle over the caret marking the source of incoming fire. Triggering a long burst, he was rewarded with a secondary explosion as something, probably a powerpack, blew. “Trust your active sensors and keep firing,” he continued.

Conquest
’s railgun-plus-particle-beam sledgehammer had ignited everything flammable just as expected, filling the enemy base with thick, oily smoke. Bull’s surroundings continued to clarify as sonar, radar, IR lidar and several other sensors pumped energies into the burning haze. Friendlies flickered like ghosts to his left and right, while squat ugly shapes moved in front of him.

“Reaper, we got some kinda tanks out here,” Bull commed as he fired another long blast of blue plasma. The ravening flame washed over the armored vehicle nosing through the gloom just before it swiveled its turret toward him. Pulse cannon shots from the Recluse hammered at the enemy, but its front glacis shrugged off the fire. Its antipersonnel rounds knocked Marines over, but the new battlesuits seemed tough enough to take it.

“Down!” Bull yelled as the tank’s main gun spoke. Its high-explosive shell struck the ground and threw him several meters to the left. His head rang and he saw double, bruised all along his side. “They’re using HEAT,” he groaned, surprised they would face such low tech as high explosive anti-tank shells. On the other hand, old-fashioned high-velocity tank guns were rugged, much more so than railguns, and a straight-on hit from one would kill just as dead as something fancier.

“Anti-armor teams, engage,” he heard someone order as he struggled to clear his head. As far as he could see on his HUD as he lay there, the enemy tanks had survived the immolating fire, but he saw no enemy infantry, nor even war drones. The sledgehammer had done its work.

Needles stabbed him and his suit pumped a speedball cocktail of stim, painkiller and nutrient solution into his veins. His head cleared after a moment and his heart hammered as if it would burst, but at least it put him on his feet again.

Several rocket teams fired, striking the enemy tanks but not stopping them. Their guns might be outdated, but the tanks’ armor was thick, much thicker than mere battle suits. Marines had tanks, but there had been no way to bring any of their own along on a fast hot assault like this. The big carrier craft needed would not have made it down. Instead, the Marines relied on the attached heavy weapons team and the Recluses. The battle drone covering Bull sidled to the left, attempting to get a flank shot on the nearest tank.

“Come on, Reaper, we’re about to get massacred,” Bull called as he rolled to his knees and fired. He saw one digger blown apart from a direct HEAT round strike. The tanks must have their own sensors, probably thermal sights, and one had targeted a Marine using his own temperature differential.

Tracers work both ways,
the old adage came to mind. Bull was just about to flame the tank in front of him again in hopes of blinding it for a moment when it shook to a tremendous blast that picked it bodily off the ground and tossed it on its side, a smoking ruin.

“How you like that, asshole?” came the gravely voice of Warrant Officer Krebs, one of the sled pilots.

“Was that a breaching missile?” Bull asked him.

“Damn skippy, boss. Didn’t need it to blast our way in, so…”

“Good thinking. Remind me to give you a medal if you live.”

“Always needin’ Aerospace to pull your nuts out of the fire, huh, sir?”

“Shut up, Krebs,” Bull replied. “Reaper –”

“We’re here, Bull,” came Reaper’s voice as she strode up beside him. “Massimo should be opening up right about now. I’ll fill in while you get this mob organized.” Bull realized that he had been getting too involved in the firefight and had lost control of the overall picture.

While fire raged back and forth at close range through the wreckage of the base’s big rooms and wide tunnels, Bull hunkered down to look over the tactical situation on his HUD. His squad leaders were doing a good job of fending off the tanks, keeping them under continuous fire, blinding their sensors and burning off their secondary weapons while the enemy kept firing main guns at point-blank range, hoping to get lucky. Unfortunately, they had, too often. A quarter of his Marine icons showed KIA already.

Bull keyed the general freq. “We need to get plunging fire on the tops of those tanks. Rocket teams, look for places up high and jump. Massimo –”

“Firing now, boss.” On cue, a bright orange beam stabbed through the smoke from Bull’s left to strike the turret of the nearest tank. At the same time, a heavy rocket slammed into the same armored vehicle from the side, mangling its treads.

Bull heard Massimo call, “Mobility kill on target one. Keep that beam on the gun, Jock. If you can get it hot enough…” Just then, the turret exploded. Either the laser had burned its way through to the ammo, or the stabbing light had damaged the mechanism enough so when the enemy fired their next HEAT round, it had jammed and detonated inside. In either case, that tank was dead.