Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (27 page)

“That’s about the truth
of the matter,” said the Corporal, grabbing her helmet and placing it on her
head.  “I didn’t really think about this part of it when I came out here.  Or
when I volunteered for the militia.”

“At least you got to
volunteer,” said Walborski, pulling on the rest of his kit.  He knew it weighed
about thirty-five kilos, not counting his weapon.

“Get a move on troops,”
yelled the acting First Sergeant, walking by their platoon ready room.  “We
don’t want to keep those bastards waiting for us, now do we?”

Cornelius thought for a
moment before he started to file out of the room with the rest of the platoon
to form up outside. 
Is he talking about the regular army?  Or the aliens
coming to kill us?

Cornelius walked out of
the armory bunker and into the still dark morning.  He could see a sliver of
light on the horizon as daybreak approached.  His platoon was forming up, and
he went into his place in his squad line.  There were still some empty spaces
there, and he wondered if they were going to show up at all.  He knew that some
of the men would have run.  Stayed with their families and not put their lives
on the line.

Too late now
, he thought.  He had
reported in and drawn his equipment.  His ass was the Empire’s at the moment. 
Unless he could look for his first chance to run, when all the hell broke
loose.

*     *     *

Dr. Jennifer Conway
heard the alarm through the uplink of her implant.  Moments later it was
followed by an urgent call on her personal com.  Unfortunately she was up to
her arms in the belly of a mom undergoing a cesarean birth.  It was amazing,
with all the genetic corrections humanity had made to itself over the years,
how babies still did not cooperate on how they positioned themselves in a mom’s
womb.

“We’re almost done,”
she said, pulling the baby from the opening she had made.  She severed the
umbilicus with a laser scalpel, and handed the wet form to one of the waiting
women of the freehold.  The baby started crying as he opened his lungs, the
lusty cry that a doc wanted to hear after a birth.  She took a quick glance at
the baby and it looked good.  The woman dried the baby off and placed him in
the assessment/care unit that the doctor had brought with her.  In it the baby
would undergo a complete physical scan, down to the genetic level.

“Let me get you closed
up here and we’ll be done,” she said to the sedated but conscious mom.  Using
self-dissolving staples and the laser, set to close the wounds, she sutured the
opening, injecting nanites into the closures.  The microscopic robots would
repair the damage she had done, so that in a week or so it would be as if the
wound was never made, with no scarring.

When she was done she
checked on the baby, who turned out to be almost perfectly healthy. 
Except
you didn’t have the sense to stay in the proper orientation,
she thought,
as she looked at the worried patriarch of the freehold entering the birthing
room.

“Is something wrong?”
she asked Montano Montero, the head of the extended family that had decided
they needed to live far from what passed for civilization on the frontier
world.

“There is an alert on
the net,” said the short, swarthy skinned man, nodding his head.

“I picked up some kind
of alarm,” she said, looking at the other people in the next room through the
doorway.  Several of the men wore sidearms, and one had a military assault
rifle in his hands.  “What’s going on?”

“We’re being invaded,”
said the head of the freehold, worry creasing his brow.  “A task force of
unknowns has entered the system and is moving toward the planet.”

“Oh god,” she said,
feeling her face flush.  “Do we know they are hostile?”

“They’ve not fired on
us yet,” said another man, by his looks a son of the freeholder.  “Or at least
we haven’t picked up any indication that they’ve fired on anything human, from
four light hours out.  But the bet is that they’re hostile since there are a
dozen large vessels driving in, with more still in Hyper VII.”

“Hyper VII?”

“Yeah,” answered the
younger man.  Conversation rose and fell in the living room behind him as more
residents of the community entered.  “They’re advanced alright.  At least as
technically advanced as we are.”

“I suggest you stay
with us, doctor,” said the elder Montero.  “We have plenty of cached supplies,
and a whole wilderness to hide in.  You’ll be safer with us than in the city.”

“But they’ll probably
need me more in the city,” she replied, thinking of the wounded and dying that
might soon be flooding the hospital.

“It’s your call,
doctor,” said the man.  “But you’re welcome to stay with us.”

“Let me get on the com
link for a minute, Mr. Montero,” she said.  “And I want to check on your new
grandson at least one more time.”

The man nodded his head
and turned away, looking as if he was walking with the weight of the world on
his shoulders. 
A new little one to worry about
, thought the doctor. 
Not the best time to come into the Galaxy.  But he’d had no choice, and now he
was here, for better or for worse.

With a thought Jennifer
tapped into the com link.  There was one blinking message marked the red of
urgent, as well as a few others that were the yellow of routine.  She tapped
into the urgent message first and was relieved when the face and voice of the
most important person on the planet came into her mind.

“Get in touch with me
as soon as you can, Jen,” said Captain Glen McKinnon, his brow furrowed.  “All
shit is coming down here and I’m having to get my command ready.  By the time
you get this message I’m sure you will know probably as much as I do about
what’s going on.  But please contact me.”

Jennifer put through
the call immediately as the message ended.  She waited for a couple of minutes
while a waiting signal warbled.  She realized that the system was probably
carrying more traffic right now than it was used to.  Even with the built in
reserve.  Finally the signal changed, and the blue eyes she loved came into her
mind.

“You’re safe,” he said
as soon as the connection was completed.

“I’m OK,” she said,
smiling.  “I just had to help a little guy out of the womb so he could greet
our invaders.”

“Where are you?”

“About a thousand
kilometers north of Frederick,” she replied, sending him a map image from the
net.  “I think I’m going to head back to town, though I’ve been offered
sanctuary here at the freehold.”

“I almost wish you
would stay there,” he said, concern in his voice.  “You might be safer there if
what we think is coming comes.”

“I could probably do
more good at the hospital,” she said, thinking of her route.

“We’re going to
evacuate the hospital into the underground shelter’s clinic,” said the Captain. 
“And I don’t see the town or the shelter being very survivable.  I really wish
you’d stay there.  For my peace of mind.”

“And what about my
peace of mind, Glen McKinnon,” she said over the link, her temper flaring. 
“While I’m safe in the wilderness you’re going to be fighting to keep a
superior force from landing.”

“I’ll be in the best
armor his Majesty can buy,” said the Marine with a projected smile. 
“Surrounded by the roughest lads he could provide.  And you won’t be in armor. 
So take them up on their hospitality, please.”

“OK,” she said, feeling
her eyes tear up.  “But you promise to take care of yourself.”

“I will, hon,” he
replied, sending his love over the circuit.  “I have to leave now.  That ape of
a First Sergeant is signaling me.  Love you.”

“Love you too,” she
replied, and the circuit unlinked.

She walked over to the
baby who lay in the chamber, kept warm and monitored.  Everything looked
normal, so she gently lifted the baby from the tank, wrapped him in a warm
blanket, and brought him over to mom.

“Here you go,” she said
to the exhausted mom, placing the baby on her chest.  Mom wrapped her arms
around the child and smiled at the baby, then smiled up at the doctor.

“Thank you, ma’am,”
said the woman, looking back at the face of her baby.

Jennifer nodded and walked
out of the room, seeking the patriarch.  She found him discussing defensive
plans with his sons.  He turned his head and nodded at her as she walked up.

“I’ll be glad to take
advantage of your hospitality, sir,” she said, glancing at the sons who had
looks of relief on their faces.  They would have a physician in their midst, no
matter what happened to them.  “My fiancé wants me to stay here and not risk
the city.”

“Smart man, your man,”
said Montero, smiling.  “Is he going to hole up somewhere too?”

“I’m afraid not,” she
said with a grimace.  “He’s a Captain in the Marine battalion.  He has a
company to lead.”

“Good boys, those Marines,”
said Montero, rolling up a sleeve and showing off a mobile tattoo of the
Imperial Marine Flag on his upper arm.  “I served forty years myself.  Got up
to first sergeant.  If anyone can handle an invasion they can.”

Conway nodded, pasting
a smile on her face to keep from crying. 
But even the best can be overrun
and killed
, she thought
.  Please God let him get through this
.  She
couldn’t remember the last time she had prayed, or what she had prayed about. 
But it seemed a good time to start back.

*     *     *

“Brigadier on the horn,
Colonel,” said the Sergeant Major, walking into the command center.

Baggett looked up from
the display, wondering why the division/regimental commander hadn’t commed him
directly through the planetary net link. 
Probably overloaded with traffic
,
he thought after a moment, nodding at the Sergeant Major.

“Good to see you sir,”
said the Colonel as an image appeared on the large viewer.

“Everything shaking
down alright, Sam,” said the Brigadier and planetary ground force commander.

“I wish we could have
had a couple of more months to shake it, sir,” said the Colonel, frowning. 
“Especially the militia.  We never got into training cycle with half of them,
and they aren’t on the same page.”

“What do you mean,
Sam?” asked Klein, turning in the view to grab something and scribble a
signature on it. 
The army continued to run on paperwork
, thought Baggett. 
Even in the face of an invasion.

“A battalion of them
showed up ready for action,” said Baggett, grinning.  “Full gear, powered up. 
They looked to stand around for hours until I had the Sergeant Major tell them
it would be at least twelve hours before we had to worry about anything here. 
And that only if the hostiles lob hypervelocity missiles at us from n-space
entry.”

“Well, go gently on
them, Sam,” said the scholarly looking man with the soft voice.  “They might be
dying for us in the near future.”

Baggett nodded his head
as he thought back on the plan they had worked out soon after landing here. 
The militia would do most of the defending of fixed positions.  The work that
would sustain the most casualties during a hostile planetary insertion.  His
regulars, along with the Marines and the armor, were to form the reserve that
would strike the enemy at the most opportune time.  Of course they didn’t tell
the militia that they would be the cannon fodder of the Imperial forces.  But
they would be that nonetheless.

“It’s also the terrain,
sir,” complained the Colonel, pulling up a map on the holo tank that he knew
the General would see over his viewer.  “I wish I had more time to scout the
terrain and set my tertiary and quaternary positions.  Right now I will have to
improvise my ass off.”

“Which, by the way,”
said Klein, “you are very good at.  One of the best I have seen.  So I feel
good about you improvising.  And remember that we never have enough of
anything.  No commander ever has had enough troops, support or time.  We make
do with what we have and try to do the best with it.  I don’t expect you to
destroy this enemy single handedly.  I really don’t expect our whole force to
do more than bleed them, and let them know they’ve been in a fight.  And that
we will do.”

“Any word on clearing
up the net on this ball?” said Baggett, bringing up his last major concern.

“It’s flooded right now
so citizens and civil defense can get through with their messages,” said the General,
nodding his head.  “We have to give them a few more hours of priority so they
can get their affairs in order.  But in a couple of hours we’re going to lock
the system down.  Ninety-five percent will be military traffic only.”

“That sounds good
enough, sir,” said the Colonel.  “And I’ll have my command ready to hit them
hard when they come down.”

“I know you will, Sam,”
said Klein.  “I’m depending on you to make the Frederick area hot for our new
friends.  Now I need to check on some of the other areas.  Signal me if you
need anything, and I’ll try my best to give it to you.”

“I will, sir,” agreed
Baggett, smiling at his commanding officer.  “I’ll scream like a stuck pig if I
need help.”