Koban 6: Conflict and Empire (33 page)

With surprising speed, the big guns of the crippled Pillagers were brought to bear on the crossing streets, or directly ahead, where the fast moving attacking vehicles had appeared from between buildings or side streets. Their targets were quickly ducking behind structures, where automatic tracking couldn’t see them. However, a bunker buster was designed for deep penetration of hardened targets, so all it required was a good estimate of distance to travel before detonation. Any Pillager crewmate was good at making such estimates. The ladybug drivers that didn’t learn to change speed and direction the instant they were out of sight of one of those guns might not make that same mistake twice.

The Pillagers behind those damaged were not standing still during this, and they activated lasers, plasma cannons, and Debilitater beams. The latter units had to beware of irradiating their own troops, in the event one of them had a leak in a suit radiation barrier, but friendly fire was always a hazard. The Ragoons riding on some of the armor spread out to the sides to protect their units from side attacks, and the large shoulder-fired missiles in each foot Legion were deployed forward quickly.

A number of Pillagers turned to the sides to smash through the ground floor of street-side multistoried buildings, to get out of the open, and to try to intercept those fast moving smaller, and lightly armored bug shaped irritants. The patiently waiting Hoth pilots were finally provided better targets than flying air cover for the infantry in open country, and had met no opposition thus far. This had been a purely ground conflict with a frustrating lack of direct confrontation, at least until the surprise traps had been sprung on the armored columns.

Pillagers blasted nine ladybugs that failed to change directions after ducking out of sight, turning them into bloody scrap. The body armor of the PDF drivers and gunners, with wire mesh as Debilitater radiation shields, offered no protection from rounds that could bust their way through twenty feet of ferroconcrete or plazsteel, or a foot of actual steel, and
then
explode.

Nearly a hundred Hoths, in flights of three, had been hanging back and circling, their stealth systems making them seem like translucent hawks, just waiting for prey to appear. They used AI interpreted guidance from visor feeds from multiple Ragoons, highlighting any ladybugs sighted, or of where they had disappeared, and the birds were swooping down for the kill. Single piloted, they were equipped with a variety of weapons. Some had rapid alternating fire from four wing mounted light plasma cannons, two per stubby wing on some models, or equipped with a large single plasma cannon under the nose. There was a high powered red laser in the nose of another model, and a version armed with a nose rail gun, firing depleted uranium slugs. All of them carried four armor-piercing missiles, two under the wings and two under the fuselage belly. The latter were capable of infrared or radar self-guidance, launched in a fire-and-forget mode once they saw their target.

Finally, the taste of actual combat seemed like a sweet dessert to the Ground Force Commander. Except, Thond had an uncomfortable feeling about how the human attack had begun. He asked Hitok a troubling question, “How did they manage to simultaneously disable only the front Pillagers of each of your twenty-one columns? They didn’t hit any others, and the blasts all came from below. Not powerful enough to lift or flip them over, but punched through their thinner bottom armor into a drive motor in either the left or right side forward compartments, killing only the driver or the main gunner. How did they do that so we didn’t detect the mines, and only to the front units?”

Hitok did a Ragnar armored suit wrist flip, as a form of a shrug. “I don’t know, but we can ask one of those creatures inside the miniature Pillagers they are using. If we can capture any of them alive. I don't want to hit any more of those mines, since they had a perfect score on disabling each one hit.”

Thond shivered the fur pattern on his armor. “That’s my concern. We didn’t have a single track blown off by a mine that was rolled over. All of them penetrated one of the two forward compartments, near the tracks, destroying a drive motor, and the crewmember in that compartment. That’s odd.” He turned to examine the images from multiple data feeds to their combat AI system.

Hitok was busy directing his Pillager’s movements, to help them herd the small enemy armored units to where the Hoths might concentrate their fire and destroy them. His sensors didn’t reveal what was now stalking the Hoths.

****

Mirikami was envious of the freedom younger Kobani troopers had, to expose themselves to risks, which he was told in definite and harsh terminology from a higher authority, that he wasn’t allowed to accept for himself.

He continued his argument, appealing to that implacable higher authority. “Maggi, it’s safe. I can do that as well as anyone can.”

“Sure, and if a tank driver sneezes or suddenly changes direction, we’ll find our top commander and best strategist looking like a crushed can of tomatoes. I may not outrank you, but I damn well can make you regret trying to turn me into a young widow.”

He thoughtlessly reminded her, “You’re a hundred seventeen!” The instant he blurted that out, he knew it was a tactical mistake.

With cold radiating from her pretty, rejuvenated pixie-like features, she offered a reminder of her own. “With our indefinite Prada style lifespans, I’ll have centuries to make you regret that charming remark, my dear.”

Sarge, always helpful, made thoughtful suggestions, “Tet, why don’t you just take off your armor, drop your pants, step outside and moon the first Pillager you see? That’s the most merciful idea after that blunder. Or, would you like a friend to shoot you out of kindness?”

A cold glance from Maggi’s piercing blue eyes shut him up and erased his cheerful grin. He said, “I think I’ll go ask how many more of the limpet mines the PDF has. They were my idea so I really should do that. I’ll go right now in fact.” He left the PDF command center hurriedly.

Colonel Gaffigan, unaware how often such harmless heated sounding discussions occurred between the amazingly young looking petite diplomat and her equally youthful appearing husband, tried a diversion. “Captain Mirikami, there could have been mines placed under all of their tanks. Why didn’t you just blow them all up at the same time? Obviously, the Ragnar can’t detect them before driving over them. Why prolong the fight?”

Maggi, her demeanor immediately pleasant again, explained a strategy that had actually been her idea, and not her husband’s, although Sarge had proposed using the marine mines. “Colonel, we want to subvert the Ragnar to our side, not destroy them. They have great admiration for valor, and as a people, they literally couldn’t accept a crushing military defeat at our hands. They would prefer to die fighting. If they lost here, to what their Thandol masters consider to be a weak new subservient species, they would be unlikely to continue as an armed security force for the Empire.”

Forgetting how volatile the woman could be, Gaffigan got hot under his collar. “I don't give a damn about
their
future. I want Tanner’s to stay independent.”

She nodded. “We do too. For you and for ourselves. That’s why we left our worlds completely undefended and came here to help you. However, we know we can’t beat the entire massive Thandol navy alone. Hell, colonel, this one Rim World colony has a higher human population than does the entire Federation! Lucky for us, the Empire doesn’t know that.

“We also know the Empire can’t hold onto and control our worlds, and exact centuries of taxes and productivity from the Federation, without the use of ground forces like the Ragnar provide. But they can certainly destroy our cities and cripple our industries from space. For us Kobani, they can easily kill us with even weak level Debilitater radiation if we aren’t in shielded armor. Our civilians, and our combat forces for that matter, can’t live their entire lives in armor, wire mesh lined clothing, or inside faraday cages. We need help to win a war against the Empire, and it’s not certain if the PU will join with us before it’s too late for our own survival. Even with them helping, we can’t match the Thandol’s primary navy.

“Their Emperor has at least five times as many ships as the Federation does, which the Thandol directly control. Each of the three security forces of the empire has about two thirds as many ships as we Kobani do. You saw most of the Ragnar fleet strength overhead, which we were able to drive off only by using our entire fleet. But, as you’ve noticed, we don’t have the ground forces or equipment to kick their ass off your planet. Only the PU has that sort of capability. Your people did a remarkable job of deception and ambushing them, before they knew enough about us as an enemy. You showed them they could never afford to underestimate any humans, from anywhere.

“Now, we want to convince the Ragnar here to withdraw honorably, with what they have left of their force. From the two prisoners of theirs we captured previously in Empire space, we estimate this is only a fraction of the troops and ground assault forces the Ragnar have in reserves, spread around their security sector in the Empire.”

Gaffigan shook his head. “What the hell will letting them escape here do for us, or for you? They could reorganize and come back.”

She answered him frankly. “Possibly. Except, by showing them what we can do in a fight, and by building trust, we might convince them, and by extension the other two security forces who don’t like the Thandol either, to revolt against the Empire when we attack from the outside. Together, we might fragment the empire into three mutually antagonistic regions, and push the Thandol out of power. The three security forces have no love for each other, and I’m confident they would not unite against us, although they may fight internally, or against us individually.”

“Why would the Thandol’s allied forces do that on behalf of the Federation, or for Human Space? They don’t owe us loyalty, and gratitude doesn’t last long if we help them win. One or more of them would come after us eventually, I’d think.”

“I agree, but we’d gain more time to get ready for them. Anyway, the Thandol defeated the Ragnar thousands of years ago, and our Mind Taps of the prisoners reveal they still have a deep racial resentment of their masters. They want revenge, and to regain control of their own destiny. We want them as an ally of convenience against the greater threat, the Thandol.”

“How are you going to convince the other two security forces to cooperate with you? It sounds like you need them all on our side.”

She smiled. “One step at a time Colonel, one step at a time. The first step is to let the Ragnar get out of here without a politically destructive total defeat. I want to try to strike a balance, to let them save face, and retain as much strength as possible, which they will need when the time comes to revolt against the Empire. I have to engineer a truce, not their surrender.”

“A Truce! Well, I just sent a two hundred of my troops out in a hundred ladybugs, up against over three hundred sixty of those big frigging tanks, with barely ten thousand PDF soldiers against their hundred eighty thousand or so. I’m going to put the other hundred bugs you brought in service, as soon as we get them unloaded, and teach my people the basics of using them.

“I also appreciate the twenty thousand Kobani troops you brought along; I really do, but good luck getting the enemy to agree to a damned truce. I don't see them accepting one, not the way things are going, unless you wipe out the rest of their armor, their space planes, Stranglers, and those three hundred or so surviving landers.
Then
we have to figure out how to stop that hundred and eighty thousand soldiers in body armor. Even if we do that, Tanner’s has suffered a considerable loss of resources, and not a few lives. The death count will go up the longer we fight. I can’t keep our civilians ahead of them for much longer.

“Colonel, have you ever fought alongside a Kobani force?”

“No, I only heard the tall tales from a few troops that saw them in action when they were fighting on Poldark and New Dublin.”

“Not all of those are fabrications. Today, you’ll get to see what genetically enhanced humans can do, wearing
fancy schmancy alien designed
stealthed armor, and how valuable Mind Taps can be.

****

The sharp-eyed Flight Leader of the three Hoths, flying between the oddly unique and colorful tall buildings of the human city, had spotted a small human plasma gun cart, just as it swerved around a corner of a large building after a slashing attack run. His console ground link indicated it had just fired on a Debilitater equipped Pillager. The main combat AI reported the armored unit’s transmitting antenna was destroyed, eliminating its most effective anti-personnel weapon. The human gun crew, although fully within the focused beam when the antenna was disabled, had obviously been shielded and unaffected by the radiation.

Captain Jastal issued rapid instructions. “Flight Leader to wings, follow me in trail. I saw where a mobile gun cart fled. I’ll use plasma, wing one use laser, wing two your railgun. I want blood and guts in our wake.”

The leader pulled farther ahead, and several blocks later signaled the turn and swooped left to pass between two high buildings that towered above them on either side, wing one close on his tail, with rookie wing two’s pilot lagging a bit, thus demonstrating why he held that lower wing number status. This strange city was actually easier to navigate at low altitudes than training in a Ragnar city would be, where there were many pedestrian crossovers between buildings at random levels. The surface boulevards at home were narrower between their closer set, slender, and uniformly dark shaded buildings.