The Prisoner of Eldaron: Crimson Worlds Successors II Read online

  Her people had stopped to reorder along the top of the ridge, but she expected the order to pursue any moment, and her platoon was ready. When the orders came, however, they weren’t what she expected.

  “Lieutenant Calfort, prepare to return to your original position.” It was Captain Tonn, and the instant Calfort heard he voice she knew something was wrong.

  “But sir, we just took this…”

  “Follow my orders, Lieutenant.” A brief pause. “There’s trouble along the flank of the army…some kind of armored vehicles attacking. The whole regiment is falling back.”

  “Yes, Captain. Acknowledged.” Calfort felt a strange feeling in her stomach. They all knew there was some kind of trap waiting for them on Eldaron…but tanks? Armored units had fought in the Superpowers’ last war on Earth, just before the Fall, but no colony world had ever fielded them in significant numbers. They were simply too costly, and the logistical problems and expense of transporting them through space were enormous.

  What the hell is coming at us?

  * * * * *

  “We can’t contact the general, Colonel. It’s your call, sir.” Antonia Camerici was one of Darius Cain’s closest aides. She’d practically begged to accompany him on his mission into the enemy fortress, but he’d ordered her to stay with Colonel Teller. She’d been upset at first, afraid Darius had been concerned she couldn’t keep up with the Special Action Teams, that her diminutive stature relegated her to staff work.

  But Darius had just looked at her calmly and told her flat out he needed her at headquarters…that he had hundreds, no thousands of great warriors, but no one who could replace her organizational wizardry in the chain of command. Then he told her Teller needed her even more than he did, and he asked her to do everything she could to help him run the Eagles until he got back.

  She still smiled recalling the encounter. She knew she was being worked…there were few people who knew how to handle soldiers as well as Darius Cain. But she realized there was truth to what he had said. This was likely to be a very difficult and dangerous campaign…and everything had to run as smoothly as possible. And she knew damned well it was nothing but the truth when he spoke of her administrative skills.

  “Bring down the Blacks,” Teller said, the disgust in his voice making it clear he wasn’t happy with the decision.

  “Yes, sir. Sending order now. Colonel Falstaff’s people are preparing to launch. Here is the preliminary landing pattern, sir.” Camerici had already organized the deployment orders, and now she handed her ‘pad to Teller so he could approve or change them. She’d cut it close, bringing the Black Regiment down just behind the current lines. That meant the troopers facing the armored attack would have to hold…or they would lose the LZs. It was a risk, a big one, but then they both knew those were Black Eagles in the lines.

  “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we, Captain?” Camerici had an odd look on her face. She still hadn’t gotten used to hearing her new rank in use. She’d been a lieutenant the last time the Eagles suited up, and it was her performance on that op as much as anything that had gotten her the promotion. “The Blues are getting slammed pretty hard over there, and it will be…what, an hour?...before Colonel Falstaff’s lead elements are down?” Evander Falstaff commanded the Eagles’ senior regiment, 1800 of the most grizzled veteran on the Eagles’ roster.

  “Forty-nine minutes, sir.” A pause. “From the moment you give the order.”

  Teller forced a brief smile. “Very well, Captain. I am giving the order.”

  Camerici was cool under pressure, and she calmly relayed the command to Eagle One. In less than an hour, fresh troops would be landing right behind the existing lines…as long as those lines held. She knew they were gambling…if the Black Regiment came down on enemy-occupied ground it would be a disaster, but she didn’t allow her doubts to interfere with her judgment.

  Camerici was young to be an Eagles captain, and fairly inexperienced, at least by the standards of Darius Cain’s famous mercenary company. Most of the Eagles’ officers were veterans of other military services, but she had been a civilian the day she had walked into the recruiting station, to the snickers of several of her larger, stronger classmates. By the time the notoriously brutal Eagles training program was over, however, Camerici was graduating with honors…and her detractors had long since washed out. She was still the only one from her class to be commissioned an officer.

  She set down her ‘pad and looked at the large display unit set up at one end of the makeshift headquarters. The long lines representing troop positions were moving…mostly back as the Eagles shifted to deal with the new threat. Her eyes focused on the flank section, to the two lines that marked the position of the battalion facing off against the tanks.

  “Hang on you guys…hang on. Help is on the way.”

  And if you don’t hold on, the Black Regiment is going to come down into a world of hurt.

  * * * * *

  “Let’s go! The Blues are catching hell up there, so move your asses. First battalion, we’re going straight in. Second battalion around the right flank.” Evander Falstaff stood just outside the hatch of the lander shouting into his com. His external speakers relayed the chaos outside his armor, the heavy blasts of the enemy tanks and the higher-pitched sound of the Eagles’ assault rifles. He could tell immediately the fighting was intense.

  Only half his people were out of their ships yet, but there was no time to lose. Ian Vandeveer’s Blue Regiment had hung on, stopping the onslaught of the enemy tanks and grimly holding the LZ, but they had paid for it in blood. Now it was the Black Regiment’s turn, and Falstaff would be damned if he was going to give his people time to hang around and scratch their asses while their comrades were fighting and dying on the line. Ideally, he’d have all his people formed up before he engaged…

  But then when did ‘ideally’ ever fit into war?

  “All platoons move forward as soon as you’re formed up. We’ll get the larger units organized later.”

  It wasn’t optimal to send his people in piecemeal, but right now time was more crucial than perfect order. His people had to take the pressure off the Blues…and break up the enemy attack before it sliced through into the rear of the Eagles’ position.

  Tanks…Falstaff had never faced off against a large force of them, but he had some idea of the doctrine involved. These were monsters by all accounts, behemoths on the scale of the old MBTs the Superpowers had fielded on Earth. They were bristling with weapons and heavily-armored, difficult to damage…even for the Eagles in their cutting edge fighting suits. But Darius Cain’s legendary paranoia had come through once again, and the arsenal the fleet carried included a wide array of supplemental weapons, ordnance designed for a variety of eventualities that might occur on the battlefield. Including hyper-velocity rockets capable of destroying even the heaviest main battle tanks.

  Falstaff’s first thought was to concentrate the weapons, create several powerful spearheads to attack through the enemy formation. But he didn’t have enough ordnance for that, so he handed them out two to a platoon…and he sent those platoons forward as soon as they were ready. The fight would be slower, dirtier—and bloodier—but there was no choice. Those tanks had to go…whatever it took.

  * * * * *

  “Fucking hell, look at that monster.” Jan Kelly peered out from the hastily-dug trench, watching the tank approach. It was more than six meters long and its armored hull was covered with weapons. She had her whole platoon dug in, and she’d ordered them all to stay down. She had seen just what the autocannons on the massive vehicles could do even to fully-armored troops. Calvett’s platoon had been caught in the open and shot to pieces, barely one in three surviving to get back to cover. She didn’t intend to let the same thing happen to her unit.

  “Alright Sergeant…let’s get that thing deployed.” Emilio Versagio was her platoon sergeant and one of the best in the regiment. Versagio had been an Eagle even longer than she had, but he was happy
with his stripes and his position closer to the fighting men and women and content to leave officer training to more ambitious types. Like Jan Kelly.

  “Setting up now, Lieutenant.” Versagio’s voice was gritty, determined. But he was frustrated too. The HVRs were tricky weapons to deploy, and few of the Eagles had more than basic training with them. Even an elite fighting corps couldn’t prepare equally for all eventualities…and tanks had not seemed a likely problem in the Eagles’ battles against a bunch of fledgling colonies that had been cast onto their own resources since the Fall.

  Kelly looked back out at the tank. It was heading straight at the trench…and it was getting closer. “Hurry it up, Sarge…and move to the right. See if you can get a shot at that thing’s flank as it closes in.” The HVRs were enormously powerful weapons, with their own nuclear power supplies and a heavy frame designed to absorb the enormous kick of launching a heavy rocket at over four thousand meters per second. Even a fully-armored Eagle would find himself slammed back hard by the kick from an unbraced HVR. Still, even for all the weapon’s hitting power, the chances of scoring an outright kill tripled if the shot was aimed at the flank of the vehicle instead of the more heavily armored front.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Versagio snapped back. Then: “Quince, Barnes…get your asses over here and help me move this thing.”

  Kelly dove down below the berm as the tank opened up, the heavy autocannon rounds tearing into the dirt and rocks along the lip of the trench. Her eyes darted up instinctively toward her display, checking the casualty reports. She felt a rush of relief. No casualties. That won’t last…

  She shuffled down the makeshift trench, reaching out to stabilize herself as she stepped over the broken, flooded ground. She could see Versagio about twenty meters ahead of her, struggling to balance the heavy weapon on his shoulder. It was at least a two-man weapon by any reasonable standard—and three by the book—but the platoon sergeant was managing fairly well by himself, at least until the two troopers he called staggered up through the muck and grabbed onto the launcher’s front and back.

  Kelly stopped for a few seconds and glanced again at her display. Her second team was already in place about sixty meters behind. Sergeant Mimms had set up on the other side of a small rise. His people had the launcher in place, but their section of line was quiet, and Kelly wondered if she should redeploy them. No, she thought…it won’t stay quiet. The enemy wants to get all they can from the surprise of these tanks, and that means we’re going to get hit all along the line…

  She moved forward again, crouching down below the lip of the trench, the nuclear-powered servos of her armor pushing through the knee-deep mud. It was an uncomfortable way to move, but she had to stay in cover. Even the osmium-iridium alloy of her powered armor was too weak to stop the heavy autocannon rounds slamming into the piled up dirt and rocks in front of the trench.

  She looked ahead, tapping the button near her left index finger to bump up the magnification of her visor. The image tightened on Versagio and his two troopers, blurring a little at first then sharpening again as her AI compensated. The launcher was almost ready.

  She pushed forward another few meters then stopped to check her recon. She didn’t dare lift her head and take a look, but the company had four drones in the air, circling the battlefield. She tapped into the closest one, getting a look at the tank approaching her platoon from a different angle, almost directly on the opposite side. There were more vehicles moving forward too. Three were heading toward Mimms’ position, verifying her gut feel that her people would face attack all along the line. Another three were rumbling forward about a thousand meters behind the lead tank, now less than a klick from her trench line.

  She shuffled the rest of the way toward Versagio’s position, stopping a few meters from the platoon sergeant. She was silent for a few seconds, letting her number two finish prepping the weapon. Then she said, “Better make this shot good, Emilio. We’ve got three more of these monsters coming up behind. And another three approaching Mimms’ position on the other side of the hill.”

  “That doesn’t give us much room for error,” the grizzled sergeant replied. There was no panic in his voice, nothing but the grim tone of a veteran who knew what the battlefield demanded of him.

  “No, not much.” None, she thought to herself. Less than none. There’s no way we can take out seven of these things…not before they run over us…

  Versagio didn’t answer. He was hunched over the targeting mechanism. The tank was heading toward the launcher’s previous position, hosing down that section of trench with fire. But the weapon wasn’t there anymore…and in another hundred meters it would give the waiting sergeant a clean shot at its flank.

  Kelly watched silently, understanding exactly what was happening. She knew they’d have to move again after this shot…the enemy would know there was a HVR here as soon as they fired. And if three or four MBTs opened up with such pinpoint targeting, not even the trench would be enough to save her people.

  C’mon, Emilio…c’mon…

  She knew her sergeant was one of the best. But even he had only used the HVRs in training, and not much even then. But there was no one else she’d have rather had at that targeting scope, herself included.

  Versagio stood still, crouched below the edge of the trench, his helmet close to the targeting screen. He waited...waited…

  Shooooom…

  Kelly could hear the missile firing, the strange sound the electronic catapult made as it accelerated the projectile almost immediately to eight times the speed of sound. There had been no way to adequately secure the launcher itself along the edge of the trench, and it was pushed back hard, twisting a few degrees and slamming into the back wall as its bracing failed. Versagio had positioned it as well as he could, but the slick mud just didn’t provide the kind of support needed to handle the recoil of such a powerful weapon.

  She jumped back instinctively, moving away from the launcher. She snapped her head back, checked to make sure none of her people had been injured. Again, they had been lucky. The heavy rocket launcher could have killed even an armored trooper if it had hit him directly enough. But it had missed them all, and it was buried halfway into the back of the trench.

  Kelly heard the explosion as she was staring at the launcher, and her eyes were still moving to the display to assess the shot when Versagio’s voice echoed in her helmet. “Yes!” the non-com shouted, momentarily losing his discipline and celebrating.

  Her eyes finally fixed on the display, focusing on the footage from the closest drone. She saw the smoke first, a thick black column, rising slowly above the battlefield. And below it was an inferno, flames licking ten meters into the sky above the skeletal wreckage of the massive tank.

  Yes, she thought, repeating Versagio’s sentiment. But the excitement was short-lived. One dead tank was a good thing…but there were six more heading their way.

  “Nice shooting, Emilio. But time’s not our ally. Let’s see if we can get that thing dug out and move our asses…before the others open up on us.

  * * * * *

  “Alright Eagles, let’s do this. These tanks are chewing up our people on the ground, and it’s time we do something about it.”

  Darryk nudged his throttle forward, bringing his bird down at a sharp angle. The drones were feeding him a constant stream of intel, and he could see the tanks spread all across the field, three large lines of them moving toward the Eagles’ hastily-dug trenches. The first echelon of tanks had been pretty badly chewed up…Falstaff’s Black Regiment was the Eagles’ elite, and they were acquitting themselves with their usual distinction. But there were a lot of tanks, and it was going to be a near run thing by the time it was done…and a bloodbath no matter who won.

  That’s without airpower, he thought grimly. We might have a few things to say about that…

  “Strike teams…begin final attack run. First pass, HVRs…then we come around again with autocannons.” The fighter-mounted HVRs were bigg
er versions of the semi-portable weapons the Black Regiment was currently employing in its desperate attempt to defeat the enemy tank force, and a solid hit would obliterate even one of the giant vehicles. Autocannons presented a different equation. Enough hits with the smaller projectiles could destroy a tank, but Darryk knew his fighters would have fly much lower…and within range of the vehicles’ AA arrays. His fighters had enjoyed the luxury of virtual impunity to enemy fire, but he knew he’d take losses doing close in strafing runs on the tanks. But the fighter wings were Eagles too, and he had no intention of watching the troops on the ground slaughtered so he could keep his own people safe.

  He brought his fighter in straight at one of the enemy behemoths. His AI did the preliminary calculations, displaying the targeting scope on his main display. Against another aircraft, he’d have adjusted the computer’s calculations, inserted the instinct a good pilot had for offsetting his opponent’s evasive maneuvers. But the tanks were big lumbering vehicles, crawling across the broken plain at fifty kilometers per hour. He didn’t change the plot at all…he just pressed the button to fire.

  The fighter kicked hard as it loosed one of its two missiles, and Darryk looked down at the scope, watching the tiny yellow icon move closer to the tank. Suddenly, there was a small flash on the screen…and the tank was gone. Direct hit!

  He moved the stick to the right, bringing himself around to target another vehicle with his second missile. He spotted a group of six moving forward. They were all identical, but there was something about the way one of them was moving, where it was positioned. It was some kind of command vehicle…he was sure of it.

  He banked down and drove right toward the cluster of tanks, locking his targeting systems on the one that had caught his eye. The AI crunched its numbers and almost immediately displayed the firing solution. He tapped the throttle, slowing slightly and moving to the right to match the AI’s plot. His fingers tightened over the firing stud, and with a feral grin on his face he loosed his second missile.