Indomitable (39 page)

“God help us.”

Jordas cleared her throat hard. “Lower parking structure. Go.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-five seconds.”

The last thing Jordas saw was Agent Mia Strauss disappearing through a service entrance before a brilliant white flash of light brought the dome down on top of her.

 

Forty-six

MAY 25
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0903 HOURS

THE KORAZIM SYSTEM, PLANET SHEOL

COMBAT OUTPOST DANNY TRUE

Captain Yates commed Promise
as her chrono approached go-time.
“Ready, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, ma'am. Victor-Two is green-to-go.”

“Stay sharp. This should be routine.”
There was a hint of doubt in Yates's voice.
“Kick your boots out first. Victor-One will follow once we touch down. Good hunting, Lieutenant. Yates, out.”

Promise did one last visual count of her Marines, which was when she noticed Atumbi's pale face. His visor was still up and his helmet's internal lights were on. And he was breathing hard. Promise opened a private link with him. “Private, nice and slow. In … and out. Good. Again. Now, listen to me. Stay with your platoon sergeant and you'll be fine. Pop your visor only if you have to. Even in this atmosphere you'll survive. Just don't take too long sealing up. Speaking of which, you need to do that, now.”

Promise opened a company-wide channel, to all four toons under her direct command, including the two in the aft compartment of the dropship. “Watch your six and watch out for your toonmates. The air is a fogged mess. I want clean kill lanes. The ash is going to cut down visibility and screw with our thermals. Keep them off and stick with visuals. You shoot it, you own it. Whiskers won't survive long in this stew so don't bother deploying them.” That meant her people wouldn't be able to use a lot of their mechanical ears and eyes to look for hostiles, and that was a real concern. Promise couldn't see any way around it. The tiny probes were invaluable reconnaissance platforms, and if you snuck one behind an enemy's lines you could literally shoot around corners with eyes-on-target. Except the ash in the air was throwing off a ton of interference, and the whiskers' shielding wouldn't last long in such a corrosive environment.

“Remember, you aren't authorized to cloak. The atmosphere is throwing off too much interference for it to hold.” The Kydoimos-6 mechsuit's recent upgrade had included a field infantry cloak, the Witchfield. When activated, it dampened heat and sound by slightly phasing the space around the wearer in a null field. Given the radiation and ash in the air, the colonel had benched it. And it was still a closely guarded secret. There was no sense showing it off if the odds were good it wouldn't work correctly.

“Maintain visual contact with your platoon sergeants. Confirm before firing. The Greys are known for their unpredictability, and we're off-loading a lot of remotely piloted platforms. That's a lot of mechs and boots on the deck, all at once. We need to get them into place quickly, and then make the handoff to their ground-based operators. No sane civvie is going to be out in the ash. The Greys might just try it. Verify before you fire. If it doesn't squawk a RAW-FF I-dent and it refuses to surrender, kill it.”

“Suits in motion?”
Prichart asked again.

Promise's HUD was blinking on double zeros and she was running late. The incident with Sindri and Atumbi had distracted her and eaten up precious time. She made a note to talk to Sindri about his timing when they could hash it out.

“Let's make some commotion,” Promise replied.

Prichart popped the forward hatch on the starboard side of the dropship as Maxi popped the hatch on the port bulkhead. Howling winds and ash flooded the compartment.

“Red Toon, go. Blue Toon, go.” Promise gave the order while triple-checking her weps.
Still green-to-go, just like the last time you check. Stop fretting, P.

The captain preferred colors to 123s, so Promise's platoon was “Red Toon,” which made her “Red-One.” Sergeant Sindri, as the platoon sergeant of Blue Toon, was “Blue-One.” In the aft compartment of the dropship, Black and Gold Toons waited to debark with the third and fourth waves of remotely piloted platforms, once the perimeter was secured. It was simple catch and release. One mechanized Marine could slave up to five RPPs to her suit with her AI running traffic control. The captain had given them fifteen mikes to get the RPPs to their assigned positions around Combat Outpost Danny True. It had seemed like plenty of time.

Promise was quick on Prichart's six as she jumped out the hatch.
On Red-Two's six,
she thought. She tapped her suit's boosters as she dropped the ten meters to the ashy deck below. The full tug of Sheol's 1.21 gravities clawed at her suit. Ash mushroomed as her boots touched down in a hellish winter wonderland, ash as thick as the freshly fallen powder in the foothills of Montana. Van Peek was out next, and then two more Marines followed after him.

“Red and Blue, get to your positions first before you ping your assigned RPPs.” Her people already knew that, but the operation was already behind and Promise didn't want one of her boots trying to rush it. “
Then
confirm the link and wait for your mechs to join you. Hold position until you hear from me.”

Red and Blue Toons fanned out around both sides of the dropship to form a defensive shield shaped like a clock, with the nose of the dropship oriented to high noon. Her HUD looked like a light board of primary colors, all moving in concert, each pinprick a RAW-MC soul. There was Blue-One—Maxi—at roughly nine o'clock, on the other side of the vessel. Good. His Marines were quickly moving into position. Promise settled in at the three-o'clock position. She and Maxi were the farthest out from the dropship and they'd have the best chance of spotting something amiss. In theory.

Over her externals Promise heard the dropship groan as its aft hatch yawned open to disgorge the mechs. Tightly packed rows of surface-to-air and surface-to-surface weapons platforms began tromping down the dropship's primary cargo ramp, which was situated aft and between the craft's two massive fusion engines. They marched five-by-five, just like RAW-MC toons of mechanized Marines. No other military in the 'verse deployed platoons of five. Most preferred eights or tens, and some even twelves. Not the RAW-MC, which had always set precedent instead of following the conventional wisdom, even if it was centuries old. “Pull twice the weight with half the metal.” “Lighter, faster, better.” Those were the mantras. So had the tradition been since the Republic's war of independence from the Terran Federation nearly three centuries before. Toons of five, companies of forty, just like the storied “First Company” of militiamen fighters who'd rallied a planet to the cause of independence and won Hold its freedom.

The remotely piloted platforms looked like top-heavy birds affixed to armored legs. Instead of arms, each platform sported two carryalls laden with missiles or energy mounts. Bulbous noses housed onboard guidance systems and point defenses. Promise's suit reached out for her toon of RPPs as they hit the top of the ramp.

That's odd,
Promise thought. The row of platforms in front of hers looked off. Two RPPs were swiveling left and right, and then one of the two deployed its weapons. Another appeared to be scanning the sky like it was targeting something. She queried her HUD to find out whose platforms were acting up. They were Bohmbair's. She'd expected better from him.

“Cut the antics, Red-Four,” Promise said.

“Not me, ma'am,”
replied Private First Class Bohmbair, the fourth member of her toon. He was two positions to her right. Bohmbair's RPPs reached the bottom of the ramp and quickly picked up speed.
“My links are cutting in and out … must be the atmospheric interference.”

“Not at this range.” Promise turned inward. “Bond, give me a SITREP on my links.”

“Holding, ma'am. Your RPPs are forming on you, as ordered—” Bond's voice stopped abruptly. “Correction, I lost the feed for a millisecond but now have it back.” Then, “Ma'am, I just lost it completely.”

“What?” She opened a company-wide channel. “All toons, report to your platoon leads.” Then she tightened the comm loop. “Red Toon, give me a SITREP on your slaves.”

Static and snow answered her while ash accumulated between the barrels of her minigun, as if the weapon had sat in a storage room, collecting dust for years.

“Red-Three, do you copy? Lance Corporal Van Peek, do you copy? Kathy, do you read, over?”

“Lieutenant … links are dropping in and … getting significant inter…”
Kathy was cutting in and out. There was no word from Van Peek.

Promise did a three-sixty in her suit, looked skyward; saw nothing but ashen sky. Turning back to scan the ramp, she said, “Mr. Bond, I don't think we're alone.” Her formation was falling apart. The platforms were not fanning out the way they were supposed to. A toon of mechs was wandering away from the dropship and toward several nearby buildings. Maybe it was her paranoia, but that toon of mechs appeared to be flanking her position. “Bond, can you clean up the net? What's going on with my HUD?”

“The battlenet is down, ma'am. We're being jammed.”

“Cycle the net. Transmit new codes. Get me Captain Yates. Do it now!”

The static continued for a split second and then the Marines in her toon were talking over each other, and then yelling over each other. At that moment a platform to Promise's three o'clock locked her up and fired.

Promise's arm jerked up, her gauntlet tensing without her express orders. Small explosions blossomed in front of her as her minigun's penetrators intercepted the first flight of missiles aimed for her. Bond's work. She'd given her AI standing orders not to wait for hers when it counted, and she'd agonized over the parameters of said orders to ensure that Bond understood when and when not to act. When and when not to fire. The platform crumpled under her continued weight of fire before going down.

Promise started counting. “One.” Her HUD glitched and three icons simply disappeared. Several more changed color from green to crimson.

 

Forty-seven

MAY 25
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 0908 HOURS

THE KORAZIM SYSTEM, PLANET SHEOL

COMBAT OUTPOST DANNY TRUE

For all their preparations,
Charlie Battalion never planned on facing the enemy within, and here it was staring them in the face. Their own tech had turned against them.

If we don't see relief soon my people don't stand a chance.
Promise spun and ducked, juked left, and squeezed the trigger of her wep.

A flight of missiles whizzed by Promise's shoulder and hammered the dropship behind her, leaving a small gash in the behemoth's side. The platforms were swarming her people from every direction, and firing on them with impunity. Grossly outnumbered, her Marines were firing back, and the dropship, nearby buildings, and the other vessels on the pad were paying the price.

Too far away to help, Promise watched one of her Marines run wildly to avoid fire. When the Marine phased out of view she wanted to rip him a new one. A split second later an armored gauntlet and then a forearm and shoulder reappeared. Because the net was scrambled Promise couldn't get a solid fix on who it was, but she was willing to bet it was one of her greenhorns who'd just activated the Witchfield. Without authorization.

Gaawd bless!

“Bond, get me a link to that Marine. She's going to get herself killed.”

Given her distance from the Marine, and all the solid particles and gasses in the air, it was a small miracle that she saw the disembodied arm pumping up and down at all. As the colonel had feared, the Witchfield hadn't held, and the Marine's limb had fallen out of phase.

“All toons,” Promise barked over the battlenet. “Don't cloak. I repeat, don't cloak. There's too much—”

It materialized in the corner of her HUD, streaked in with zero warning, sliced the air above the crown of her helmet, and scorched the metal as it passed by. Even in her mechsuit Promise felt the hair on her head stand at attention. The explosion rocked her in her mechboots and took her to the ground. As she pushed up, she again caught sight of the partially phased Marine.
I'm too late.
A toon of platforms had taken notice too, and as they turned toward the half-seen Marine they opened fire. The driver's helmet fell out of phase while the rest of her armor rippled in and out of view. Direct hits peeled away precious armor and speed. Now the Marine was limping, stumbling, and desperately trying to turn around and bring her weapon to bear.

A tear slipped from the corner of Promise's eye.
The hallmark of a Marine. A sister of the close fight.
Then the Witchfield failed and Promise's heart sank, and all she could do was watch death's door yawn wide open. The air swelled with enemy missile fire and explosive penetrators. She didn't have time to watch the dust settle. There was nothing left to see anyway.

Promise got to her feet and screamed, ducked, shuffled sideways, and vented her rage into an obstinate platform. That made …

Two.

The captain's voice broke through the chaos over a company-wide channel.
“ALCON, the platforms are comprised. Neutralize them. Rally point, here.”

Promise heard Captain Yates grunt over the battlenet and the sounds of gagged weapons fire bleeding over the comm.

A ring dropped on Promise's HUD, roughly halfway between her position and the captain's, near a small depot not far from the dropship's nose. To reach it, she'd have to plow through a lot of metal, metal that only moments before had been on her side. Unless …