Crimson Worlds Collection II Read online

  Merrick had over 600 tanks, and he was determined to position every one of them individually. He was staring at the deployment display – his command tank was loaded with extra electronics to help him keep tabs on the entire corps. He was happy with the progress, but there was still work to do. For one thing, his supply line was too exposed. His engineers were excavating a sunken roadway for transports to bring up supplies, but there was heavy rock just below the steppe, and work was moving slowly.

  “General Merrick?” It was Erik Cain’s voice on the com.

  “Yes, general?” Merrick’s tone was reverently respectful. He had only been part of 1st Army for two months, but he’d already fallen under Cain’s spell. His new commander was a welcome change from the inbred political appointees that filled the top positions in the terrestrial army.

  “I’m calling a meeting of senior commanders for 17:00 hours.” Sandoval’s day was a little over 23 Earth hours, but it was divided into 24 slightly segments, each slightly shorter than a terrestrial hour. “My HQ.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Isaac…if you’ve got any deployments you think are crucial, get someone on them now.” His voice was relentlessly steady, without a hint of fear, but Merrick suddenly felt a fist in his own gut. “I just got word from the warp gate…120 First Imperium ships just transited.”

  “No, Erik.” Sarah’s voice was shrill, not quite angry, but definitely upset. “You can just forget about that idea.” She was standing outside the bathroom door, her wet hair splayed across the back of her silk robe.

  “Listen to me, Sarah.” Cain’s voice was hoarse and frustrated. He had enough to deal with; he didn’t need this from her. “This is going to be a different kind of battle. Things are going to get bad. Very bad.” He walked toward her and put his hands on her shoulder. “I don’t want you here. I want you safe. Go back to Armstrong.”

  She turned abruptly, shaking his hands from her shoulders. “Things are going to be bad? Like on Carson’s World?” She shoved a wet hank of hair out of her face. “Like a dozen other places I’ve served? Who do you think I am? Some country doctor?” She was getting more and more upset as she spoke. A lot of it was the stress coming out; she’d been worried about Erik for a long time now. She’d always been able to reach him, to ease his tension, usually the only one who could. But not this time. He’d withdrawn into someplace deep inside himself, and it scared her. She didn’t know what to do, how to help him. But she was mad too. How dare he treat her like some fragile thing that needed to be protected. She’d lived through as much horror as he had, from the worst slums in the Alliance to the fiercest battles the Corps had fought. Sarah Linden could take care of herself, and she wasn’t going to let anyone think differently. Not even the love of her life.

  “Sarah, no one is doubting your courage.” He was getting more frustrated. God, he thought, she is so pigheaded. “But hell is going to erupt on this world. I know…I’m going to unleash it.” He stared into her eyes, wordlessly begging her. “Please, just go back to Armstrong. The hospital there needs you.”

  She stared back at him, and she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “Damn you, Erik. I’m a Marine too, and I’ve been one as long as you have. Longer.” Her voice was softer, but the anger was obvious. “How can you ask me to run away just before a battle? After all the times I’ve supported you? Don’t you think I was terrified when you went to Earth to rescue Augustus? But I didn’t ask you to go hide somewhere.”

  Cain’s face was contorted with exasperation. “I’m not saying you can’t handle yourself. You know I don’t think that. But I need to be focused. I can’t be worried about you in the middle of the battle. Stop being so stubborn.”

  She could feel her whole body tense. She loved him with all her heart, but he could be the most irritating person too. How could he call her stubborn? She’d never met anyone as infuriatingly obstinate as Erik Cain. “This is the largest force the Corps has ever put into the field, against the toughest enemy.” She was appealing to his rationality. “There are going to be tens of thousands of casualties here, and no one will run the field hospitals better than me. I’ll save lives here, Erik, and you know it.”

  “But, Sarah…”

  “No buts.” She felt the flood of anger, and she cut him off before he said another word. “My duty is here, and I’m staying. I can save Marines here. After all the years I’ve watched you thrash around in bed and sit up nights, plagued by guilt…you would ask me to leave when I know I will save lives if I stay?” She felt herself going too far, but she had a temper just like his, and she couldn’t stop. “For the last year we’ve all watched yourself insist on taking the blame for Jax’s death. How dare you ask me to run away and hide on Armstrong. Then I would be to blame for all the deaths…all the men and women I could have saved.” Her breath became a little short, and she wished immediately she could swallow those words, at least the part about Jax.

  Cain was looking right at her. He didn’t say anything at first, but she could see the pain in his eyes. He hesitated, forcing back the emotions he kept buried. Anyone else would have faced a titanic barrage of rage and invective. Finally, he swallowed hard and spoke quietly. “I can order you to go.”

  She took a deep breath. “Only if you’re prepared to court martial me and have me escorted off-planet.” She stared back at him, holding her ground, trying to keep herself together.

  Cain held her gaze for a few seconds, perhaps half a minute. Then he turned and walked out of the room without another word. Sarah managed to control her emotions until the hatch closed, but then the tears came. She and Erik almost never argued, and she hated the feeling. She was angry at herself for hurting him. But she was who she was, and nothing could change that. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  Cain walked down the corridor, his fists balled in frustration. She didn’t understand; she didn’t understand at all. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, that he thought she had to be protected. He trusted her more than anyone he’d ever known. She was all he really cared about, and he didn’t want her to see him, what he was becoming. But it was more than that. He was going to win this battle, and he was prepared to sacrifice anything to do it. The men and women under his command, his own life…anything. Anything but her.

  “I agree, Augustus.” Cain was sitting in his office in 1st Army’s underground HQ bunker. The short delay endemic to orbital communications was driving him crazy, as it always did. Patience was never his biggest strength. But he had bigger things to worry about. “There’s nothing to gain giving battle now. The laser buoys and the bombers will wear them down, but you know as well as I do you don’t have a chance to take out the whole fleet.” He paused for a few seconds. “And you know that’s what it will take…wiping out every one of them.”

  Neither of them kidded themselves about that being a possibility. To Garret’s horror – and Cain’s inexplicable apathy – the scanners had reported eleven of the Leviathans, along with over 100 Gargoyles and Gremlins. Giving a pitched battle would be suicide – it would play right into the enemy’s strengths.

  Gremlins had come through first, backed up by ten Gargoyles. Garret had positioned a screening force, but it was overwhelmed by the enemy vanguard and driven away from the warp gate. Only then did the main body transit, safely screened by its lighter units and, presumably, bristling with antimatter weapons. A direct defense of the planet would be suicide.

  “If I had both First and Second Fleets in the line, then maybe.” Garret was still trying to rationalize. He hated leaving Cain and his people on the planet without even giving the invaders a serious fight in space. But Second Fleet had been depleted at Point Epsilon, and it would be at least two months, and maybe more, before it was reinforced and resupplied. Then, maybe things would be different.

  “I want them here, Augustus.” Cain’s voice was as grim and determined as anything Garret had ever heard. “I want them to land. We’re ready. These bastards are going to walk right into
the fires of hell.”

  Garret felt a passing shiver. Like the rest of Cain’s close friends, Garret had been worried about him since the Battle of Farpoint. But this was something new, something different. Erik Cain had always been resolute and stubborn, but now he was like a force of nature, relentless and terrible. Garret wasn’t sure if he thought his friend was still sane, but he had a feeling Cain was just what they needed now. He hoped there would be a man left when the war was won.

  “Ok, Erik.” Garret’s voice was resigned. He wasn’t happy, but he knew what had to be done. “I’m going to do everything I can to sting them as they come in, but then I’ll withdraw out of the system. When Second Fleet links up with us we’ll be back.” He paused, feeling the tension throughout his body. “And that will be one hell of a counterattack…I promise you.” Assuming you can hold out that long, he thought.

  “We’ll be here, sir.” Cain’s tone was dark, cold, utterly without doubt. “The ships are yours to take out when you can. The ground forces are mine.” His voice was like ice.

  “I’ll keep you advised right up until we bug out.” Garret took a deep breath, then another. “Good luck, Erik.” His voice became lower, sadder. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Good luck to you too, Augustus. Happy hunting.” Cain cut the line and leaned back in his chair. He thought back over the years…his days in the violent slums of New York, the battles he’d fought, and the men and women he’d seen fed into the meatgrinder. It started to make sense to him. All his life had been preparing him for this day. He would be the perfect warrior, cold, fearless, without fatigue. He would pay his debt here, to all the men and women he’d lost in battle. This was their fight too.

  Cain had lost the trepidation about the enemy, the strange fear that seemed to grip even hardened veterans when facing the relentless robotic foe. He regretted the lack of emotion in his enemy, but not because he feared them. He wished they could feel, that they were gripped with fear. Destroying them wasn’t enough; Cain wanted them to suffer…he wanted them lying in the mud bleeding to death, crying for their mothers and tearfully picturing the friends and family they’d never see again. He ached for them to feel every wretched emotion his own men and women did, to cling to the shreds of whatever spirituality they had and face death scared and alone. He hated the enemy, hated them with a passion that few could understand. There had always been a dark place in his mind, where he’d kept the resentment, the anger, the bitterness. Now he embraced it, letting the blackness wash over him. He would be death incarnate to the enemy. He would match their relentlessness measure for measure, and he would destroy them all. He would shove his humanity into that place now, lock it away out of reach. He wouldn’t be needing it.

  Chapter 8

  High Energy Physics Lab 3

  Combined Powers Research Facility

  Carson’s World – Epsilon Eridani IV

  “I think we have small-scale containment under control.” Friederich Hofstader was hunched over a large plasti-steel worktable, clad like the others in the room, in a hooded protective suit. He was working quickly and being far too aggressive to take normal precautions. He’d been down with radiation sickness half a dozen times, but the treatments only took a few days, and then he was back at work. He knew it was hard on his body, but that didn’t seem very important right now. The casualty figures kept coming in from the front, and they put things into perspective. He knew those Marines, at least some of them, and as brave and well-trained as they were, they didn’t have a chance in this fight. Not without the technological advances streaming out of his labs. And if they could fight and die against an enemy possessing godlike weapons and technology, Friederich Hofstader figured the least he could do was work himself – and everyone on Carson’s World – into the ground to try and give them the tools they needed.

  “I think you’re right, Friederich.” Adam Crandall was leaning across the table from the other side, staring intently at the scale model that stood between the two of them. “We need to build a test version as soon as possible.”

  Hofstader had restructured the entire research operation, and the results had been immediate and profound. New discoveries had been flowing steadily from the Carson’s World labs, and they’d already begun to contribute enormously to the war effort. Men and women were fighting with weapons developed in his facility, and that made the effort worthwhile.

  The whole job had been made a lot easier by the order from Admiral Garret and the other Alliance commanders giving him absolute authority on Epsilon Eridani IV…and the battalion of Martian Marines sent by Roderick Vance had made implementation of that order downright simple.

  Hofstader had ruthlessly purged the place, expelling everyone who was choked with procedure and slowing the progress of the research mission. He brought in his own people, handpicked from those he felt were best able to contribute. His list deviated considerable from the seniority rosters from Earth’s universities and research facilities. A lot of pompous windbags with strong political connections had howled, but he really didn’t care. The uproar might have meant something once, but not now. He had Garret, Holm, and Vance at his back, and no one was going to challenge that group, certainly not while the war was going on. His position had been solidified further when Garret was appointed supreme military commander of the Grand Pact, and placed at the top of the multi-national organization chart. No one would question Garret’s orders now, not even the politicians on Earth.

  The invasion had seemed surreal to Earth’s elites at first, but by now the ruling classes of the Superpowers were terrified, cowering, praying for Garret and his military to save them. They realized their gilded towers in Washbalt and St. Petersburg and Hong Kong wouldn’t save them if First Imperium forces reached Earth. They would die as miserably as any Cog bleeding to death in a back alley. Ideology and elitism normally dictated affairs on Earth, but now it was fear that trumped all.

  By all accounts, Crandall should have been one of those shipped off-planet. Hofstader considered him to be one of the greatest minds he’d ever encountered, but the Alliance scientist had been a creature of academia, his research bogged down with time-wasting procedure and bureaucracy. Crandall had been dominated by the previous director of the facility, a bully by the name of Ivan Norgov. The Russian scientist was a political animal at heart, more concerned with securing his own position than expediting the research project, and Crandall hadn’t had the strength of will to oppose him. Hofstader had, and he’d been ejected from the research team for his troubles. He’d still be in exile if Garret and Vance hadn’t returned him with 500 Marines at his back.

  Once Norgov was gone, dragged in tears to a waiting shuttle by half a dozen Martian Marines, Crandall and Hofstader had a long talk. They discussed what was truly happening at the front and reviewed some of the video of the First Imperium forces. Since them Crandall had shed his bureaucratic paralysis, and he’d become one of the major driving forces in unraveling the planet’s mysteries. Epsilon Eridani IV was the only significant cache of First Imperium technology available for research, and the ancient antimatter factory promised to reveal the secrets that would allow humanity to defeat this terrible new invader. Assuming Earth’s greatest minds could bridge a millennia wide gap.

  “That’s very aggressive of you, Adam. Are you sure you don’t want to debate things for a couple months first?” Hofstader smiled. The two had become friends as well as colleagues. “Don’t worry…I’ve already ordered work to commence on the prototype.”

  Crandall returned the smile, graciously accepting Hofstader’s gentle ribbing. “One of these days I’ll live all that down. We’ve thrown out the book here, haven’t we? I’m not sure what we could do to move things any faster.” Crandall had been down with radiation sickness twice himself. Fully cognizant of what was at stake, he’d become almost as carelessly aggressive as Hofstader over the last year. He felt the same duty to do what he could to help the men and women fighting to save them all, and beyond that,
his scientific curiosity ran wild. Removed from the society and bureaucracy of Earth-based institutions, he rediscovered his love for unraveling the secrets of the universe. The technology on Carson’s World was astonishing. Things he’d vaguely hypothesized were sitting right there, fully developed and deployed. Before him, buried in the riddles of the First Imperium tech, were the answers to all his questions, the confirmation or refutation of all his theories. The work of a hundred generations of Adam Crandalls was there to be deciphered.

  “I don’t know how we could move things any faster either, but we’re going to have to figure a way.” Hofstader’s voice became deeper, more serious. “We just got a communication.” Crandall’s eyes widened and he looked up at Hofstader. “Admiral Compton’s fleet engaged the enemy at Point Epsilon.” He looked over and flashed Crandall a brief smile. “The x-ray lasers were a huge success. Better than we could have hoped.” The new weapon had come directly from the Carson’s World labs. Colonel Sparks and his people had taken the largely theoretical design from Hofstader and Crandall and produced an operable weapon in less than five weeks. Now that system had been tested and had proven to be enormously effective.

  Crandall smiled broadly. “I knew they would be useful. They’re a huge leap over our normal lasers.”

  “They’re still not a match for the enemy particle accelerators, though.” Hofstader’s smile began to fade. “And their uses are somewhat limited. We can’t exactly detonate fusion bombs in our ships, can we?” The bomb-pumped x-ray lasers were one-shot weapons. The power source was a thermonuclear warhead that simultaneously provided the energy for the shot and destroyed the entire system.