Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Read online

  With no usable real estate in the system, the battle for Gliese, if and when it came, would be a naval affair. The little maneuver we’d pulled off to grab the station was only possible because it had been a surprise attack, and there were no Caliphate naval forces posted in the system. But now the navy had done everything it could to bring force to bear, and if the Caliphate came back they’d have one hell of a fight in space. And I do mean one hell of a fight. As long as our invasion force was deployed down the Tail, Gliese would host the biggest concentration of naval force deployed anywhere since Operation Achilles.

  We even had an allied PRC task force in-system to bolster our defenses, which was a new level in cooperation between the two powers. In addition to bringing 8 cruisers and a number of support vessels, the armada delivered Captain Akio Yoshi, an observer and liaison officer who would be coming with us on the campaign. The general attached him to my battalion, and asked me to make him as comfortable as possible.

  I took the general’s charge seriously, and checked and rechecked all the arrangements. I inquired about his billeting arrangements and found that he’d been assigned VIP quarters, which were quite a bit larger than my own. I checked them out to make sure everything was ready for his arrival, and I assigned a private to act as his orderly and assistant while we were on the station. I tried to arrange for one of the officer’s clubs to have some Japanese dishes available while he was here, but since we’d only taken the station a few months ago, the supplies were still fairly limited, and they couldn’t really accommodate my request.

  I had a basic course in Japanese at the Academy, but the language curriculum was one of the things that had given way to the wartime acceleration of the training program, and my resulting ability to stammer a few words did not exactly facilitate communication. I was as likely to call his mother a rhinoceros as I was to offer a respectful greeting, so I took a portable AI with me when I went to the landing bay just in case his English was no better than my Japanese.

  I could have saved myself the trouble. After we exchanged our respective salutes he greeted me warmly, in perfect English. “Major, I am glad to finally meet you. We in the PRC have heard much about your exploits, and I have been a particular fan. I am most honored to be your ally, and I sincerely hope one day to be your friend.”

  He extended his hand, and I grasped it firmly. “Captain Yoshi, I am very glad to meet you as well, and quite grateful that your English is far better than my Japanese.”

  He laughed heartily. “My father was the PRC ambassador to the Alliance for almost ten years. I grew up in the Georgetown Sector of Washbalt. No doubt one reason I was assigned to this duty.”

  “Well that should make things much easier on me. I’m from New York myself.” I motioned for the orderly to collect the bags. “You must be exhausted. Let’s get you settled into your billet. The private will bring your baggage to your quarters immediately.”

  “I would be most grateful, Major. And if I may make a request?”

  “Certainly, Captain Yoshi, what can I do for you?”

  “It’s been a long day, and I’m starving. Is there anywhere on this station that makes a good burger?”

  I started to answer him, but couldn’t stifle my laugh. He looked at me quizzically, so I explained about my misadventures with the officer’s club kitchen, and we both laughed again.

  “Your efforts were most kind, Major, but you needn’t worry. Ten years on your east coast, remember? If I can get a good rare burger and a pepperoni pizza with a decent beer to wash it all down I’ll be just fine.”

  We had another laugh, and then we downshifted into small talk as we made our way to the officers’ club, where we had two rare burgers that Akio pronounced, “quite excellent considering where we are.”

  We got along immediately, and while there was very little common ground between his privileged background and my, shall we say, grittier past, it turned out we were very similar in many ways. We agreed to dispense with the “major” and “captain” stuff, except in front of the troops.

  I learned a little more about the liaison program over the next few days, and I thought it was a great idea. In the past allies tended to operate in overall cooperation, but generally undertook their own separate operations with minimal joint planning. Combined task forces, like the one taking shape in Gliese 250, were quite rare, and any suggestions at embedding allied liaison officers into active strike forces would have elicited shouts of “espionage!”

  But mistrust was starting to give way to necessity. Since the Unification Wars, there had been no formal, long-term alliances or treaties between any nations. Certainly, some of the powers were more likely to support others—us and the PRC or the Caliphate and the CAC, for example. But there were no long-term arrangements, and each war set off a desperate scramble to attract allies, with the belligerent powers offering their prospective new friends all sorts of choice bits of the enemy empire in return for joining the fight.

  But the scale of war in space was increasing, and it was becoming more crucial to have long-term allies. No power was strong enough to stand alone. The CAC and the Caliphate had as close to a permanent alliance as existed, which put enormous pressure on us. We could have handled either one of them, but not both. As both were usually fighting against us, and the PRC was the blood enemy of the CAC, an alliance made all sorts of sense.

  For six years we had fought both the CAC and the Caliphate alone, and our defeats were largely the result of being spread too thin. If the PRC had entered the war at the beginning, the strategic situation would be enormously different. We might have even won the war by now. But there was still tremendous distrust between the superpowers, and these wheels turn slowly. Maybe it starts with two officers, a couple of hamburgers, and a night spent drinking too many beers.

  Akio fit in very well, and he got along with everyone. He was very friendly and easy-going, but when I pulled up his file and read it I realized that this guy was one hell of a fighter too. In the couple years since the PRC had entered the war he’d been in five assaults, the last two as a company commander.

  His first assignment was commanding a platoon protecting an exploratory expedition on a newly discovered planet. The CAC, which also claimed the system, sent in two companies to take out the whole group. Akio’s platoon dug in and held out for 5 days against five to one odds before PRC naval support arrived and the CAC forces withdrew. He had 65% casualties and was wounded twice, but he held the place and kept every civilian member of the expedition alive.

  I was going to have trouble keeping this guy a safe distance back from the fighting, I could see that now. And I didn’t want to end up having to tell the general how I got the PRC liaison officer scragged.

  CHAPTER 10

  AS Belleau Wood

  Task Force Crocket

  En route to Iota Draconis system

  The order of battle listed 6,307 troops, including the general and Aoki. It took three days to shuttle us all to the waiting transports, and another two to get all the equipment and provisions loaded and the ships underway.

  My battalion was assigned to the Belleau Wood, which was eerily familiar, since it was a sister-ship to the Gettysburg. We filled it up this time though, and things were pretty crowded. I had a cabin with an adjoining office this time instead of a bunk in the non-com berthing area. Another of those privileges of rank.

  We were accelerating at 1g, so we didn’t have to strap into the acceleration couches, at least not yet. It would take a couple days to get the fleet into formation, and until then we’d have a comfortable ride. I used the time to get everyone settled in and put together a schedule of workout and training sessions. When they weren’t strapped into the couches or asleep, I wanted them kept busy. God, when did I turn into an officer?

  The fleet was impressive. Ten large assault ships of the Gettysburg and Arlington classes, and twenty-four smaller transports and supply vessels, protected by a nine ship task force built around the battleship MacAr
thur. We were lighter on warships than we’d normally be for this big an op, but that’s because they were staying in Gliese to protect our rear.

  Eight days later we zipped through the Iota Draconis warp gate and burst into enemy space at .05c. We didn’t expect any significant defending naval forces, but the task group went in ahead anyway, the transports lagging behind. If we guessed wrong, and there was a Caliphate fleet down the Tail, there was no point in losing a brigade before they even touched ground.

  As expected, there weren’t any warships in Iota Draconis, but the MacArthur’s group did capture four large freighters filled with rare ores from further down the Tail. The ships had been trapped at Iota since we’d taken control of Gliese 250.

  Iota Draconis II was the largest colony of the three we were going to assault, and the orbital defenses were a lot tougher than anticipated. The fleet took them out, but the MacArthur took significant damage, and one of the cruisers was holed in multiple places and knocked out of the fight indefinitely.

  This was the first time I’d served under General Holm in an attack, and the landing was the most meticulous thing I’d ever seen. Every aspect was perfectly timed, with the general closely monitoring each detail. A single regiment landed in the initial wave, with a reserve battalion suited up and ready to reinforce if necessary. My people stayed onboard, and I found it difficult to sit in my office and watch the battle unfold without me. I’d invited Jax and Aoki to monitor progress with me, and we sat silently for a long while, each of us unsettled at sitting on a ship while troops were landing on an enemy world. Finally, Aoki broke the silence. “I have never seen a landing so perfectly executed. General Holm truly lives up to his reputation.”

  “I’ve never met any officer with a mind like his.” I looked up from the screen over to Aoki. “He sees everything, and he anticipates every possibility. I still don’t know how we managed to hold Columbia, or how he knew the enemy had that third wave coming. Jax and I were only sergeants at the time, but Holm was aware of everything that was going on during every minute of that battle. And with all he had going on at the end he still had the time to track one wounded sergeant and send out the party that pulled me from under a pile of radioactive debris.”

  “He did more than that, Erik,” Jax said. “He led the search party himself. We counter-attacked right after we repulsed the enemy advance—your emplacements were spot on, by the way … I’ve never seen troops melt away like they did in those fields of fire. We ended up four or five klicks from our starting point by the time the fighting was over. I was sure you were dead, but the general—colonel then—commed me and said you were alive and ordered us to head back and find you. By the time we got to you he was already there, with two medics and a couple squads of infantry searching.”

  I hadn’t known the whole story before then, and I sat there quietly for a few minutes thinking about it. All three of us were silent, in fact, until the first units started to hit ground.

  The assault went very much according to plan. The planet, which the enemy called Al’Kebir, was one large landmass dotted with small lakes and seas. It was hot, almost too hot to sustain habitation, but like so many worlds on the rim, it was rich in resources rare and valuable on Earth, so men lived there. The assault was a complex one. On most colony worlds the limited populations were clustered in relatively small areas near resources or the original settlements. But Al’Kebir was mostly barren desert with dense areas of rainforest surrounding the many small landlocked seas. The rainforests were full of dangerous plants and animals, but also a wide variety of useful and valuable resources. The population was dispersed into the small, moderately habitable bands between the rainforests and the surrounding deserts. There were no major cities or towns, just tiny villages spread in the habitable zones all over the planet.

  This invasion would have no battle lines, no major objectives, and no concentration. It was a series of widely scattered search and destroy missions intended to wipe out the garrisons and take control of a hundred tiny villages. We knew there were regulars stationed on the planet, though intel didn’t think there were any first line Janissaries. The native troops would probably be a cut above the average colonial militia—they usually were on these inhospitable worlds.

  We had 1,800 troops in the first wave, all powered infantry. There were ten initial LZs, located in the deserts, each about about 15 klicks from one of the habitable zones. The primary maneuver element was the platoon, and the companies were spread out over a wide area. The invasion forces went from village to village, systematically taking each and then moving on to the next target. Localized rally points were set up to evacuate the wounded and deliver resupply to the committed units.

  Things went pretty well. The regular garrison troops defended the villages, but they were second line troops and heavily outnumbered. Also, unlike the Janissaries, many of them were willing to surrender rather than be wiped out. It was the locals and not the regulars that gave us the hardest time. They withdrew into the rainforests, forcing our troops to follow them into the dense terrain to root them out. Combat in the jungles was difficult and slow. The fighting suits protected our troops the biggest dangers of the environment, but the swamps and quicksand were huge impediments to maneuver. Finally, the general sent down some teams with heavy incendiaries, and we leveled the jungle wherever there were heavy pockets of resistance. Quite a few of the defenders were incinerated in these attacks, and most of the rest surrendered rather than face the same fate.

  The destruction of large stretches of rainforest would damage the planet’s economy, perhaps permanently. But this was war, and we did what we had to do. The mop up took another week, but the planet was ours. It was an unpleasant battle for the troops that fought it, but our losses were actually fairly light. The locals in the jungle gave us fits trying to run them down, but they didn’t have the weaponry to inflict heavy casualties on our assault units.

  We burned through a lot of ammunition and supplies, however.—about 40% over projected expenditures. Since this was a campaign with three objectives, budgeting our supply was crucial. The moons campaign had been the first multi-objective operation we’d mounted; this was the second. It marked a significant expansion of scope in strategy and planning. Instead of targeted a single world and launching an assault, our operations were starting to fit more into an overall strategic plan. We were no longer taking A because it was a juicy target; we were taking it because it led to B and that led to C.

  We had about 60 dead and 175 seriously wounded. One of the transports was detached to take the wounded and prisoners back to Gliese, and the task force reformed and made a course for the only other warp gate in the system—the one to 79 Ceti.

  The transit took six days, and then we decelerated into the 79 Ceti system and revectored toward our target, the fifth planet. I have landed on many worlds, some virtual paradises and others difficult environments, but 79 Ceti V was the most hellish world I’ve ever experienced.

  The system’s seventh planet was an enormous gas giant, with almost 100 times the mass of Jupiter, and the forces exerted by this gargantuan neighbor distorted the orbit of world number five. Highly elliptical in nature, the resulting path around the sun caused the planet, called Eridu by its occupants, to be bombarded by intense heat and radiation during its long summers and to become a frozen wasteland in winter. The atmosphere was noxious, though not immediately lethal. But between the overall environment and the massive radiation from both 70 Ceti and planet 7, Eridu was one of the unhealthiest environments ever occupied by man.

  However, the planet had large, naturally occurring stable isotopes of certain trans-uranic elements, exotic materials that existed only in trace quantities in laboratories on Earth. These elements were extremely useful in starship drives, and they were almost incalculably expensive. Eridu was the only known location where these elements occurred naturally in significant quantities, and where there is such value men will find a way to extract it.

  Accor
ding to intel reports, the planet was primarily inhabited by bonded workers, citizens of the Caliphate who had committed some offense or failed to pay a tax and were sent to Eridu to work off the debt. Poorly equipped with protective gear and working under dismal conditions, the median life expectancy for a new worker was less than eighteen months. Few who were sent there ever returned.

  The supervisors lived in better shielded quarters and were equipped with superior protective suits. They were rotated out after a two-year assignment, generally quite wealthy after their stint. With no permanent population, there was no militia or local defense force, and the planet’s garrison consisted entirely of regulars. Because of the savage environment, the garrison was 100% powered infantry, which meant we were likely to have a significant fight on our hands.

  My battalion made up the lead assault wave. Eridu was the toughest objective of the campaign, and the general was counting on me to make sure the landing went smoothly. Or as smoothly as possible. Landing on Eridu was not an easy task. It was mid-winter, and the planet was wracked with massive ammonia blizzards. The dense, radioactive snow played havoc with scanners, but was even tougher on visibility. We sent down three automated drones, each with a very high-powered beacon that would serve as guidance for the landers. One of the robot probes crashed, and the second had a very hard touchdown but managed to deploy its beacon. On the third we got lucky; it landed perfectly.

  We used the two functioning beacons as ground zero for two groups of landers. The general left all the details of the landing up to me, and I decided to bring down two companies in the first wave, and after they had landed, send in the battalion assets and the third company.

  I went in with the first company, though I suspected I might get a lecture about it after the battle. If my troops were going into this hell, I was going with them. It was a rough ride down, but my lander made it without any damage. A few of the others came down hard and eleven troops were wounded. One crashed, killing all five occupants.