The Prisoner of Eldaron: Crimson Worlds Successors II Read online

  “Colonel, we’re picking up landing craft, over a hundred of them…coming down just behind the enemy positions.” Camerici’s voice, interjecting onto his com line.

  Teller froze.

  Enemy reinforcements? Could there be surviving enemy ships up there too?

  “Oh yes, Colonel,” Garret said calmly. “That is General Gilson. She’s on the way down now…with four battalions of Marines.”

  * * * * *

  Catherine Gilson stepped out of the ten-man Liggett lander. The field behind her was covered with the strange craft. The Liggetts looked like something a child might have constructed from an erector set, a spidery framework of hyper-steel with ten small cradles for armored Marines. There was no hull, no pressurized interior, not even a cockpit. The craft were robot-controlled and the occupants rode outside, their armor covered in heat-resistant foam but otherwise in the open as they launched from orbiting spaceships.

  The landers were pitted and scarred by the time they hit ground, but that was of no concern. They were built for a one way trip, to get assaulting Marines to the surface as quickly as possible. Gilson took a few steps forward, watching approvingly as her people ejected from their landing craft and quickly formed up. They were Marines, and she expected nothing less, but she also knew the Corps hadn’t conducted a combat landing in fifteen years. More than half the men and women out there had never entered a hostile planet’s atmosphere, never gone into a large battle. For all the vaunted training and the strong leadership she knew permeated the Corps, a lot of her people were about to get their baptism of fire.

  I wish I had a division or two of the old veterans…

  Her mind was on the men and women she had led decades before, the Marines who had won the Third Frontier War for the Alliance and then driven the First Imperium out of human space. They were gone now, most of them, lost in the brutal fighting that had raged almost uninterrupted for twenty-five years.

  The old Corps had been the greatest fighting force every assembled, at least as far as she was concerned. Elias Cain had led them then, and the men and women who had fought under the Marine flag were some of the finest she’d ever known…warriors like Darius Jax, John Teller…Erik Cain.

  Is he really alive? Is it possible?

  Catherine Gilson had fought alongside Cain for decades, and the two had inherited command of the Corps when Elias Holm was killed. Cain had stepped aside with the coming of peace, ceded the top command to her…only to come back and fight in the Second Incursion. And, as had been widely believed, to die in that terrible conflict. Only now, it appeared, he might have survived after all.

  Gilson understood why Sarah had slipped away without a word. She had known that Gilson would have taken the Corps to Eldaron immediately, that she would have committed everything to rescuing its lost general. But as much as Sarah loved Erik Cain, she would have known that the Corps had no chance alone. Its days of great power were behind it, and all that remained was a small force, determined to keep the spark of excellence alive, but without the numbers to project the power to conquer a world.

  Though perhaps enough to tip the balance…

  When she saw what the Eagles were facing, she knew immediately her Marines could never have prevailed alone. But she was determined to make a difference now that they were here.

  Something felt right about her people being here. She wasn’t one to think in terms of fate or anything of the sort, but she had to acknowledge it was a strange set of coincidences that caused Augustus Garret and Elias Cain to arrive on Armstrong within days of each other. And she couldn’t overstate the importance of Garret in the space battle they had just fought. The Marine fleet reinforcements had helped even the fight, but it was the tactical brilliance of Augustus Garret, still as strong as ever, that had won the battle so handily. There had been no one remotely in Garret’s league since his close friend Terrance Compton had been lost almost forty years before…and it appear there still wasn’t.

  Now it is our turn.

  “Battalion commanders,” she roared into the command com. “I want your units formed up and ready in ten minutes.”

  She had brought her Marines down right behind the enemy armies. The Black Eagles were pressed to the wall, outnumbered and struggling to hold off assault after assault. But she was about to put an end to that. In twenty minutes her Marines would hit the enemy rear…and she’d made her orders clear. Once the attack began, it would not stop…not until they had broken through…and she walked out in front of the line to shake Erik Teller’s hand.

  Chapter 38

  Above The “Field of Death”

  Planet Eldaron

  Denebola System

  Earthdate: 2319 AD (34 Years After the Fall)

  Darryk flew over the battlefield, and he could barely believe the ferocity he saw below. He’d seen battles before, but the Eagles had always been superior to their opponents. And he’d never seen them so outnumbered.

  His Eagle brethren were formed up in something resembling a flattened circle. They were being attacked from every direction, but they had dug in and stubbornly refused to give any ground. The fighting was brutal all along the line, but now he could see disorder along a section of the enemy position. They had stopped their offensive in that sector, and they were struggling to reposition forces to meet an unexpected onslaught.

  Catherine Gilson’s Marines had launched their own attack, directly against the rear of the enemy. The Marines were powered infantry, just like the Eagles and the mysterious enemy forces they were facing. Darryk was impressed with how quickly they had moved from their landers right into battle. The Marine Corps had a tremendous reputation, but it was generally thought their glory days were behind them. Darryk shook his head. The fighters he watched attacking with such ferocity…they were proving there was still room for them to win new glories. And Darryk suspected the shades of old Marine heroes would have looked on approvingly at their progeny.

  “Alright, Eagles, let’s go. We’re going to cut right across that line…between our people on the ground and the Marines. First run we dump the FAEs, and then we strafe the hell out of them on the way back. And make it count, because that’s the climactic battle going on down there.”

  Darryk was leading 27 fighter-bombers, every one of the original sixty that could still fly. He’d lost half a dozen to the enemy AA fire on the last ground assault…and more than twenty in the desperate battle in space. The horrors of that struggle were still fresh in his mind. Black Eagles didn’t like to accept the possibility of defeat, but Darryk knew without a doubt that all his birds—and the ten Eagle capital ships—would have been blown to plasma without the timely intervention of Admiral Garret and the Marine fleet.

  And from the looks of things, Colonel Teller’s folks on the ground were in deep shit too.

  He tied his display into one of the scanning drones. It gave him a closer look at the Marine forces advancing into battle. They looked just like the Eagles, leapfrogging forward, using any cover the ground offered, firing with everything they had to keep the enemy suppressed.

  He angled his fighter down, lining up for the attack. He flipped a row of switches, arming the FAE warheads his bomber carried for this run. The fuel air explosives were almost weapons of mass destruction against unarmored enemies, but even powered troops caught in the primary blast areas would be in big trouble. Along the main axis of the drop, temperatures would soar well beyond the melting points of the alloys in their fighting suits. Darryk didn’t imagine having your armor literally melt around you would be a pleasant death. But right now he didn’t give a shit.

  He banked the fighter around, setting his course as close to parallel to the Eagle and Marine lines as possible…and right between them. Then he dove, angling down as sharply as he dared. He brought the fighter to an altitude of less than two hundred meters…and then he said a single word to the ship’s AI. “Drop.”

  He could hear the clicking sounds as his bomb bay cradles opened, leaving a t
rail of small canisters behind the ship. The explosions began almost at once, and the ground below his fighter erupted into billowing columns of flame.

  He tried to imagine the devastation, the enemy troops running to escape the primary blast zones. But escape was a fool’s hope. Even those who survived his own bombs were moving right into the target areas of the fighters on his flanks. He’d concentrated the attack, and his wings were carpet bombing a pinpoint area on the front lines.

  He pulled back on the throttle, his craft climbing to over a thousand meters as he brought the bird around for his strafing run. He’d almost gotten into position when he heard the high pitched screech of his warning system. He knew what it was immediately, but the AI nevertheless confirmed it. “We have been acquired by multiple tracking systems. Estimate six surface-to-air missiles locked and inbound.

  Fuck.

  He hadn’t known where the AA had come from on the last mission days earlier…but now he realized that these mysterious soldiers had their own equipment, and all of it had been shielded from the EMP attacks. And it included a heavy anti-air capability.

  He jerked the throttle wildly, glancing back at his crew. “Hang on…I’m gonna try to shake these missiles.”

  He dove slightly then turned upward and went into a steep climb. Darryk knew he was a good pilot, but he also knew he wasn’t likely to escape from six missile locks. Still, he had to try.

  He turned hard to the right, and he pushed the thrust to full power. He could hear his ship creaking as over 10g of pressure slammed into him. He felt faint, but he struggled to hang onto consciousness. He sucked in a pitiful mouthful of air, forcing it into his lungs.

  Then he cut the thrust suddenly, and let the fighter drop a few hundred meters. It was all wild, random…the best way to confuse the tracking AIs in the approaching missiles. And it worked. On three of them at least. But three more were coming in. He heard the rattling sound of the defensive railguns, the AI firing the weapons, desperately trying to destroy the remaining missiles.

  He saw one vanish…then another. But the last one was still coming…

  “Impact in eight seconds,” the AI warned, its voice unemotional, disturbingly so, Darryk thought, considering the situation.

  “Eject,” he yelled, and he pressed the large red button on the side of his chair. He felt himself jerked hard, so hard he blacked out for a few seconds. When he came to, he was outside, still strapped to his chair. There were three parachutes above, and he was falling slowly toward the ground.

  But where? He twisted around, trying to get a look at the ground. Was he coming down in enemy territory? In the firestorm his own bombardment had created?

  He tried to find the other chutes, his crew. Had any of them made it out? Or was he the only one?

  Don’t panic. At the speed you were going, the four of you could be spread out over kilometers…

  He could see the fires on the ground…he was coming down well past them, beyond the front lines. He felt a wave of relief. He’d lost his bird—and God knew how many of his fighters had been shot down on the raid. But he couldn’t do anything about that. And for all the worry, and even the guilt he might feel for those he had lost, he had to admit to himself he wanted to survive. He was glad he had made it out, that his chutes were bringing him down somewhere he could land.

  He could see the ground coming up…closer, closer…

  Then, with a single hard thud, he was down. He pulled at the latch, unhooked himself from the harness and jumped to the ground. He was pretty sure he had come past the battle zone, but he reached down for his sidearm anyway. But the instant his hand dropped to the holster he heard a harsh command.

  “Hold!”

  He froze, and suddenly he was aware of a cluster of figures moving toward him. They were armored, and they looked much like Black Eagles. But they weren’t.

  He turned slowly, keeping his hands from moving. “I am Major Darryk, attack wing commander for the Black Eagles.”

  Then he felt gloved hands upon him from both sides, grabbing him, holding him like a vice. A third armored figure moved up toward his front, and an instant later the helmet retracted to show a woman in her late twenties. “I am sorry, Major,” she said, her voice pleasant but watchful. “We’ve had enemy infiltrators trying to get through our lines, so we have to be careful.” She flashed a glance at her comrades, and they released him.

  “I am Corporal Gerian, Armstrong Marine Corps. Come with us, Major, and we’ll get you back to our HQ. I’m sure General Gilson will want to speak with you immediately.”

  * * * * *

  Albrecht Trax stared into the monitors at the ruins of his army. He didn’t understand what had happened. The plan had been perfect, meticulous. Everything had been in place. Yet all across the field there was nothing but defeat. His forces were broken, his units scattered and facing total destruction.

  He’d thought to order a retreat to the bunkers, to pull his forces back to the secret bases where they had hidden before launching their attacks. There were weapons there, defenses. Perhaps, he had thought, our enemies will break themselves attacking us there…and we shall regain the initiative. But then the orbital bombardments began.

  The fleets in orbit targeted the underground bases, guided by data collected by their satellites. Another failure—if our fleet had prevailed, there would be no satellites…and no enemy ships to bombard our bunkers. Trax had stood in the field outside his headquarters and stared at the mushroom clouds rising above his bases. In an hour, the entire infrastructure that had hidden and housed his 30,000 men was gone, reduced to radioactive slag.

  He’d ordered his soldiers to stand firm nevertheless, to fight to the last man, but across the field, many broke their conditioning, fear overcoming the deeply-planted compulsion to obey. They ran, dropping their weapons, losing all discipline and seeking only to save themselves. Their efforts had proven futile, however, and Trax had activated the Endgame protocols for the few who had managed to flee the fury of the Eagles and the Marines. The reward for those who had broken through to seek escape was instant death, as the deepest of all their programming sent the signal to stop their hearts cold.

  Omega forces do not surrender, Trax thought grimly…and they do not run either.

  He realized his own end was near as well. He was an Omega general, and he knew well enough what awaited him back on Vali if he somehow managed to escape. The Triumvirate did not tolerate failure from anyone, but he was a commander who had been defeated despite outnumbering his enemy almost ten to one, despite a long-planned and carefully-laid plan. He could only imagine what terrible end awaited him. No, he would not go back in disgrace. As soon as he had seen to the disposition of his forces, he would activate his own conditioning. He would die here, the last of his force on Eldaron.

  His thoughts were dark, grim. He’d joined the Omega forces to seek power, and he had risen high indeed. Victory on Eldaron would have propelled him even farther, to the very highest military commands in the Triumvirate’s military. But such thoughts were moot now. They could accomplish naught but to mock him.

  He thought bitterly of the Eldari, at how ineffective their forces had been, and he took solace in knowing the Tyrant, too, would pay the ultimate price for failure. If the Black Eagles didn’t get to him, the Triumvirate surely would. Either way, Trax thought with malicious satisfaction, the Eldari monarch faced a grim and unpleasant end.

  He looked down at his displays, and he knew what he had to do. There were still thousands of his soldiers in the field…and some units were still in battle, holding on grimly, even as their comrades gave way, exposing their flanks and opening them up to total destruction. Trax knew his soldiers could kill more of their enemies, but he was also aware of the futility of such action. His chance for victory was gone…and if he waited much longer he risked capture. Enemy spearheads were breaking through all across the line, driving deep past his few remaining units. No, there was no point, no purpose in prolonging things.


  He felt a rush of fear, and he almost lost his resolve, nearly slipped into a panic he couldn’t control. But he held his control, barely. I must not fear death. My alternatives are far worse…

  He punched his command codes into the workstation, entering the overrides to activate Endgame for his entire force. He would do one last duty…he would live long enough to see the enemy took no live prisoners. Then he would follow his soldiers.

  He pressed the primary control, and he watched as the figures scrolled down the screen, unit designations, confirming that Endgame had taken each of them. He tried to imagine the confusion of his enemies as the soldiers they were fighting simply dropped in place.

  No doubt they had orders to take prisoners. The enemy still knew shockingly little about the Triumvirate, and so it would remain. They would have armor and weapons to inspect, little different from those they themselves employed. And they would have dead soldiers. But there would be nothing else. Endgame was as thorough with the army’s AIs and databases as it was with the troops.

  Trax could see the officers in his headquarters dropping around him, as the Endgame sequence reached its final stage. He hadn’t given any warning…there was no purpose in allowing any of them to try to stop him, to make a hopeless play for survival.

  He looked all around him, and he knew that he was the only one left. In the headquarters, and all across the battlefield, not an Omega soldier remained alive save him.

  Another thought invaded his mind, a last attempt of fear and self-preservation to win the day. He could surrender. He was the Omega commander, invaluable to the enemy. They would spare him…indeed, if he bartered what he knew, he might obtain a pardon. He could survive the debacle, escape the retribution that surely awaited him on Vali.

  But then he felt a pain in his head, and a voice speaking to him, from the very depths of his mind. It was more conditioning he knew, though he had no knowledge of what it was. It was strong, far more powerful than his ability to resist…and its purpose was clear. Endgame, he could hear in his head. Endgame.