By Force of Arms (28 page)

The same clones who had welcomed his people with open arms only months before, had turned decidedly less hospitable of late, even going so far as to cut off communications. It didn’t require diplomatic credentials to understand why. The Hegemony feared that if the Sheen attacked their guests they would suffer as well.

The officer could have felt bitter, could have felt betrayed, but didn’t. It seemed as if his people were destined to go friendless, to roam the stars forever, bereft of peace. The clones were nothing more than the latest manifestation of a hostile universe.

The platform clanged to a stop, Rawan stepped off, and turned toward the cold gray light. It flooded through the cavern’s entrance and glazed the deck in front of him. Walking into the alien glow, then peering out over the semi-frozen landscape, was part of his daily routine. Officers saluted from a distance, technicals went about their chores, and the robots ignored him. The admiral’s breath came in gasps as his lungs struggled to extract oxygen from the cold thin air. The medical officer claimed they would get used to it after a while, but Rawan had his doubts.

A wrench clattered as the officer neared the opening. A cold, clammy wind caressed Rawan’s face and sent his hands into his pockets. The gloves he had intended to bring remained on his desk.

Warning lights chased each other around the opening, deck icons warned of danger, and snowflakes swirled beyond. The sun struggled to push its pale yellow light through a corona of white mist and failed. Rawan stepped over the kneehigh safety chain and paused to eye the twin energy cannons positioned to either side of the passageway. Stripped from a decommissioned cruiser and protected by localized energy shields, they could defend against both aircraft and a ground assault. Even the Sheen would be forced to take such weapons seriously. It was a comforting thought. The admiral leaned into the wind and forced himself onto the outer platform. Moisture formed at the comers of his eyes and he blinked it away.

Though technically classified as “Earth normal,” the Hegemony planet designated as BETA018 was actually quite marginal, which had everything to do with why the clones allowed the Thraki to establish a colony there.

The entrance, and the base to which it led, were located at the head of a U-shaped canyon, and, more than that, were roughly one hundred units off the ground. That meant that any pilot so foolish as to attack would have to fly between the computer-operated weapons positions that lined both walls of the valley and into the combined fire of the energy cannons that flanked the entrance. Not a pleasant prospect.

The same thing would apply to ground forces, since Rawan and his staff had gone to considerable lengths to ensure that all of the defensive weaponry could depress their barrels and launch tubes far enough to reach the canyon floor.

In addition to those precautions, Rawan had laid a minefield across the canyon’s mouth, ordered his robots to construct a variety of obstacles, and even gone so far as to prepare trenches for the six hundred ground troops assigned to protect his air squadron.

The wind renewed its assault on the officer’s face and only the fact that the Thraki had short, bristly fur prevented him from getting frostbite. He stared down into the valley below but was unable to see his marines. Because their camouflage was so good? Or because he was getting old?

Whatever the reason Rawan feared that the ground forces represented the chink in his armor. The navy was strong, very strong, thanks to hundreds of years spent fighting duels with the Sheen, but the ground arm was weak and relatively inexperienced. Just one of the things that explained his Runner sympathies.

A klaxon sounded somewhere behind him. Fighters probably—back from a sortie. He could clear the deck or risk being blown off the ledge. Rawan took one last look at the valley and turned away. The cavern yawned and he stepped inside.

The holo, shot during a rare break in BETA018’s cloud cover and augmented by footage supplied by recon drones, ran its course and faded to black. The Gladiator’s hangar deck had been pressurized and, with the addition of folding chairs, transformed into a serviceable auditorium. The tights came up as Booly stood and made his way to the portable podium. The ship’s motto, “For glory and honor,” faced the audience. He looked out at the crowd. It was the most unlikely gathering the officer could have imagined.

The Jonathan Alan Seebos claimed the first couple of rows and, if it hadn’t been for differences in age, would have been as identical as the hard eyed stares fastened on his face. Immediately behind the clones sat the men, women, and Naa warriors still at the Legion’s core. Further to the rear, like mountains rising from a human plain, the Hudathans loomed. Their skins were gray, their backs uncomfortably exposed, and their expressions were grim.

And behind them, like a race unto itself, the cyborgs stood. Some human, some Hudathan, they were big, but dwarfed by the aerospace fighters beyond and by the scale of the Gladiator herself.

Here, Booly thought to himself, are the real aliens, beings who no longer resemble the species from which they came, and no longer perceive life in the same way.

None of the Ramanthian ground forces had been as signed to the assault on 18, both because of their lack of experience in fighting on ice worlds and their participation in other initiatives. These were the minds that would take Booly’s ideas, translate strategy to tactics, and lead their troops into battle—not in segregated units, as certain politicians had suggested, but in integrated groups in which Hudathans, Naa, and humans would fight side by side. It was a risk, a big risk, but so was the alternative.

Assuming the Confederacy managed to win most of the upcoming battles, assuming that it managed to survive the Sheen onslaught, the heat of the conflict would bake the military into its final form—a form that would be difficult to break without causing considerable damage. The kind of damage that might lead to another rebellion or civil war.

Still, it was with a sense of deep-seated concern that the officer started to speak. His words were translated as necessary. “You’ve read the reports, heard the analysis, and seen the footage. So you know what we’re up against. Given the threat posed by the Sheen, the Gladiator is the only ship the Confederacy could put against BETA018. One ship—on& planet. Why use more?”

Booly waited for the laughter to die away. “The Thraki are extremely experienced warriors. They have their backs to the wall and are well dug in, not only dug in, but dug into an allied planet, with civilians in residence. The settlement called ‘Frost’ lies only six miles away from the Thraki base. An orbital attack would destroy both.

“To root the Thraki out, Admiral Tyspin’s fighters are going to have to penetrate the valley and put weapons on hardened targets… me most important of which is the base itself.” Booly paused to scan their faces. Pilots stared up at him. “In order for the jet jockeys to hit their targets, the ground pounders will need to silence at least some of the batteries that line both sides of the canyon.”

A major yelled, “Camerone!” and a substantial portion of the audience roared the appropriate response. “CAMERONE!”

Booly noticed that many of the Jonathan Alan Seebos remained silent, as did a substantial number of the Hudathans, but some joined in. That was progress. He grinned.

‘Thank you. I’m glad to see that someone’s awake out there.”

Laughter rippled through the audience. Booly picked up where he had left off. “You and your troops come from different worlds, pack different DNA, and have different cultures. Those differences could manifest themselves as a weakness, a. fatal weakness, or, and tremendous progress has been made in this direction, they could become the source of our strength, and the reason we emerge victorious. Not just here, but elsewhere, when the Sheen drop hyper.

“Long hard days have been spent establishing a chain of command, integrating our varied systems, and selecting best practices. Every single one of you deserves credit for making that happen. Now comes the test, the moment when steel meets steel, when courage owns the day.”

A human legionnaire rose at the back of the audience and shouted the ancient Hudathan battle cry: “BLOOD!”

The audience roared the response: “BLOOD!”

A Hudathan stood, raised his fist, and shouted “CAMERONE!”

Booly smiled, waited for the noise level to drop, and brought the meeting to a close. “You know what to do—so go and do it. Insertion teams Blue, Red, Yellow, and Green will drop about six hours from now. Kick some butt for me.”

The flight of six daggers shuddered as they forced their way down into the planet’s hard, thin atmosphere. Lieutenant Commander Rawlings bit her lower lip. She’d seen combat before, back during the mutiny, but not like this. She had been a watch officer then, standing shoulder to shoulder with the bridge crew, staring into a three-dimensional holo tank as brightly lit sparks fought duels in the dark.

This was different. There was the loneliness of her one person cockpit plus the knowledge that five pilots were counting on her for guidance and leadership. One Hudathan, two Seebos, and a couple of “greenies” right out of the navy’s AdvancedCombatSchool. Rawlings didn’t know which scared her most, their lack of experience or hers. A group of red deltas wiped themselves onto her HUD and Lieutenant Hawa MorloBa, who never tired of being first, made the call. “Blue Five to Blue One … bandits at six o’clock!”

Rawlings listened to herself say, “Roger that. Five,” and took pride in the flat laconic sound of the words. ‘Tally ho!”

Clone intelligence claimed that Thraki interceptors were protected by cloaking technology obtained from a race called “The Simm,” and it appeared that they were correct. The enemy interceptors were a good deal closer than she would have preferred. The naval officer “thought” her aircraft to starboard, felt it side slip into a dive, and brought the ship’s weapons systems online.

The others watched her go, followed the officer down, and scanned their readouts. Power was critical, weapons were critical, everything was critical or would be soon.

Flight Warrior Hissa Hoi Beko watched the Confederate aircraft descend, checked her wing mates, and confirmed their positions. The pilot’s weapons, like the rest of her ship, were controlled by the special gauntlets she wore. Each movement had meaning. Index to finger to thumb:

“Safeties off—accumulators on.” First two fingers in parallel: “Ship-to-ship missiles—safeties off—guidance on—warheads active.” The pilot’s displays flickered with each carefully articulated movement. Then, as the enemy fighters came into range, a circuit closed, and her fingers began to tingle. Beko fired and the air war began.

Rawlings heard tone, fired chaff, and rolled. The enemy missile sped past and exploded. The fighter that had fired it pulled a highgee turn and attempted to flee. The rest of the Thraki interceptors did likewise.

Both of the Seebos responded with a nearly identical cheer, applied full military power, and gave chase,

Rawlings wanted to stop them, wanted to call the pilots back, but wasn’t sure why. Good fighter pilots were aggressive, competitive, and little bit obnoxious. But this was too easy, too tempting, too …

Beko checked her screens and grinned as the enemy ships took the bait. The Hegemony had been most accommodating during the early stages of the Clone-Thraki relationship and shared some of their knowledge regarding Confederate technology. That was how Beko knew the range at which her adversaries would be able to detect her fighters and was able to put that knowledge to work. By leaving two heavily cloaked interceptors behind, and leading the enemy towards them, she and her wing mates had closed the trap.

The Seebos saw deltas appear as if by magic, tried to react, but ran out of time. Rawlings winced as the orange-red flowers blossomed, gritted her teeth, and took the challenge.

The Thraki had reversed direction by then… which meant that she and her three surviving pilots were about to go head to head with six enemy aircraft. That’s when the naval officer noticed how precisely the enemy was grouped. Because they had a taste for discipline? Or because the pilots were trained to fight tightly controlled machines? Computer controlled machines that behaved in predictable ways? Words followed thought: “Break! Break! Break! Take ‘um one on one, over.”

Beko frowned, and the fur crawled away from her eyes as the oncoming formation seemed to explode. Confederate vessels went every which way as she struggled to understand. But there wasn’t enough time, not at combined speeds of more than a thousand units per hour, and the .sky went mad.

The Confederate ships rolled, turned, dove, and climbed. Missiles left their racks, coherent light stuttered toward their targets, and 30 mm cannon shells tunneled through the air.

Beko yowled in frustration as the formation disintegrated around her, fired at one of the oncoming ships, and knew she had missed. And then, before she could recover, the interceptor took a hit. Alarms went off, systems failed, and a computer made a decision. The cockpit blew itself free of the ship, a cluster of chutes popped open, and the planet swayed below. Beko saw no less than three of her pilots die or bail out during the next two minutes. Shame filled her heart, and the weight of it pulled the warrior down.

The Command and ControlCenter, or CCC, was almost eerily quiet. Near disasters, disasters, and total disasters were announced in the same emotionless drone used to describe the most important of victories. It was a large compartment by shipboard standards, buried deep within the Gladiator’s armorclad hull, and the place from which Booly, his staff, and a group of highly skilled technicians ran the assault on BETA018.