Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour (55 page)

Kate decided it was time to find out what was causing the delay. “Gold One, Alpha Leader.”

“Alpha Leader, Gold One, go,” Burgton said.

“I have them bottled up in the museum, sir, but they’re fighting back hard. My men are running low on power and ammo. I’m conserving what little we have left, but without re-supply we can’t hold. How long before the strike?”

“Charlie Company is under heavy pressure…” Burgton began.

Aren’t we all.

Kate ducked as a rocket flew from the window she had just fired at. The explosion shook the ground to her right, and another wall collapsed. She looked worriedly through the rising dust. Gina’s platoon was in that building.

“…five minutes?” Burgton asked.

“I don’t think so, sir,” Kate said, as more rockets and grenades began coming out of the museum. “They’ve realised what we’re doing. They’re pushing me harder now. I don’t think—”

WHUMP! WHUMP!

The explosions were so close that Kate was lifted from where she lay prone, and was thrown ten metres along the street. She was dazed and in pain with blood running from her nose and ears. The noise of the battle seemed far away, but at least she was alive. A diagnostic showed yellow almost everywhere, but the damage to her head was a worry. The indicator was flashing orange around her head. After querying her processor, Kate realised it was indicating a fractured skull. She tried to regain her feet, but fell almost immediately with everything spinning sickeningly around her.

She tried again, but fell over before taking two steps. Only one eye was working. All she was receiving from the right one was a rolling targeting display that gradually grew worse until it winked out. Luckily, her left eye was functioning normally. She rolled onto her belly and regained her feet with slugs from a gauss rifle kicking up the debris around her, only to fall over her own feet. It was very embarrassing. She hoped no one could see her. She dragged herself to the top of the crater, rubble rolling by as she struggled to the top. She was intending to dash back to her people, when something hit her solidly in the belly. Air blasted out of her, and she folded like a puppet with its strings cut.

Darkness washed over her, and she knew no more.

Initialise reboot sequence…

Diagnostics: Unit unfit for duty.

Initiate hibernation... Done.

Activate beacon for pickup… Done.

Beacon transmitting.

Warning: Hostiles detected.

Activate combat mode… Done.

Initiate emergency repairs… Failed.

Warning: IMS failure. Report to medical for full system analysis.

Fault logged. Continue reboot sequence…

TRS… Done.

Sensors… Done.

Targeting… Done.

Communications… Failed to initialise.

Retry/Abort? >_

Retry/Abort? >_

Retry/Abort? >_

Fault logged. Continue reboot sequence…

Infonet… Service not available.

TacNet… Failed to initialise.

Retry/Abort? >_

Retry/Abort? >_

Retry/Abort? >_

Fault logged. Continue reboot sequence…

Initiate emergency reactivation…

Kate regained consciousness face down in the still smoking crater. She lay still and listened to the General trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t understand what he wanted. His words faded in and out, and she couldn’t associate them with any action needed by her. She listened and tried to understand.

“…Leader is down! Repeat Alpha Leader is down!”
a voice cried over TacNet.

Who was Alpha Leader again? “Oh yes, that’s me,” she mumbled coughing up what seemed like a gallon of blood.

The pain made Kate’s eyes bug, and she clutched at her belly. She felt broken armour under her fingers, and something soft and squishy pushing through it. She rolled onto her back and craned her neck trying to see what it was.

“I’ll get her,”
Fuentez said.

“No stay there,” Kate hissed angrily, and tried to access the net. Her helmet was MIA with its comm, and her internal comm was out of commission too, but she still had TacNet. “Alpha Leader…” what was she going to say? “Alpha Leader to… anyone, stay away,” she said, but no one heard her. She had too much damage.

“…will follow orders. Katherine is one person, you have an entire Company to see to.”

“But, sir!”
Fuentez said.
“I can see where she must be.”

“You have your orders. You have command of Alpha Company for the duration. In exactly three minutes the navy is going to flatten the entire area.”

“Yes, sir,”
Fuentez said stiffly.

Kate blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of her situation. Flatten the area… that didn’t sound very good, did it?

* * *

Stone listened intently, and hissed with rage when he heard the news about Richmond. He looked at the Colonel appealingly, and received a slight nod. That was all he needed.

He sprinted at max toward the burning and broken city.

Leaping rubble and craters alike, he stretched his awareness out ahead of him. He had his rifle ready in case the opportunity arose to increase his score, but Richmond was thorough. He found no sign of the enemy as he made his way through the smashed streets.

“You have your orders,”
Burgton said.
“You have command of Alpha Company for the duration. In exactly three minutes the navy is going to flatten the entire area.”

Stone accelerated and flew over the rubble barely touching the ground. Three minutes wasn’t long enough. He felt like howling in frustration, but instead he accessed a satellite in an attempt to find a quicker route.

He found one.

“Yes, sir,”
Fuentez acknowledge the order stiffly.

Stone dashed through a building, and fired his rifle at full power into the wall before he slammed through it. His display flashed yellow on both arms, but he ignored the pain. He’d had worse. Besides, a viper could take a lot more than hitting a wall at speed. The new street was clear of obstructions, and he made up some time, but before long, it ended in another wall. He raced toward it and leapt—

—And smashed down onto the roof of a low building. He had no idea what it was for, and cared not at all. He ran and leapt onto higher roof, and then onto another using each like a set of stairs until he was close to his target. He looked down at the firefight far below and tensed. This was going to hurt big time.

Stone jumped.

 * * *

Kate flinched as something smashed to the ground nearby. She thought at first that one of the flyboys had dropped a Titan on her, but there was no explosion. Instead she heard a lot of groaning and cursing in retro. She couldn’t stop herself from laughing between bouts of coughing.

“What are you doing here?” she said, as Stone dragged himself over the lip of her crater.

“I thought I’d drop in to say hello.”

“Your leg…” Kate winced in sympathy. His right knee was smashed to splinters.

“It’s nothing,” he said, sweating as the pain threatened to break from his control. “How bad you hit?”

“Don’t know. A diagnostic says I’m screwed one minute, but then it says I’m a hundred percent combat capable the next. My wristcomp is out too. I can’t see out of my right eye, and when I stand up I fall over. My—” Kate hissed as the pain slammed through her again. “My belly hurts.”

“Not surprised,” Stone said doing something to her down below. “Half your guts are hanging out. You hit by a tank or what?”

“Gauss slug I think.” Stone probed her belly with his fingers. “What you doing?” She hissed as agony blossomed. “
Fuck!
Leave it will you!”

“I’ve got to push it back in or I can’t get you out of here, bitch girl. Stop your whining.”

“Sorry,” Kate said, and panted as the pain stuttered along outraged nerves. “How are you going to do it with your leg hanging off?”

Stone grimaced. “It’s not that bad.”

It was, but Kate said nothing as Stone dragged her upright. She took the weight off his smashed leg so that they could move, and he held a hand over her belly to stop her insides slopping out. Kate’s world became one of excruciating pain as he half dragged, half carried her over the rubble strewn streets. Splinters of concrete and brick pelted them as ricocheting slugs kicked up the broken rubble around them. She felt like the world around her was spinning out of control, it made her dizzy and sick. She heaved wanting to throw up her last meal pack, but all that came up was more blood. Her armour and uniform was covered in it. She fumbled at her face with a shaking hand trying to wipe her mouth, but only succeeded in smearing the disgusting stuff over her chin. Her face felt numb. She stared at her hand, and found it slick with more blood. Shouldn’t her bots be taking care of that little thing?

Kate blinked dazedly around, hoping to see Gina and the others, but they must have pulled back already. That meant the strike was imminent. They would not have pulled out otherwise. She ordered her sensors to find her friends, but nothing happened. The data on her display kept insisting she was falling. She watched her altimeter spiralling down, and winced when it hit zero, but nothing happened of course. It was just her processor having a whigout.

“Where are we going?” she said, slurring the words. Her lips weren’t working right. Hell, what was these days?

“God knows,” Stone said as the bombers came in to drop their loads on the museum.

WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

* * *

Zuleika Spaceport, one month later

Flight lieutenant Gary Newlove, otherwise known as Scorpion Leader, paced slowly passed his ship’s forward intakes, open now that she had an atmosphere to breathe again, and down passed the one step ladder waiting for his foot. He ducked under her starboard wing, and paused to check that her pylons were all secure. The SPAF-18 Nighthawk had four pylons, two under each wing, which could take a variety of munitions in any configuration a mission required. The Nighthawk was a very versatile craft. Fast and manoeuvrable enough to ensure air superiority against other fighters, while retaining enough spare payload to make it a very respectable bomber in its own right. His ship was currently configured for ground attack. The white tipped Hornet AG missiles were a dark menacing shadow within their launcher hanging from her inner pylon, while the fat and happy bulk of an Atlas bunker buster bomb took her outer pylon. All her munitions had the white tips indicating war shots. Red tips would have indicated this was a training mission, and incidentally would have had him screaming bloody murder, but all was fine.

Before leaving to check her portside, he grabbed the Atlas and shook it roughly. It barely moved, as it should be. If the movement had been excessive his baby would have been down checked. The inner pylons, which were designated one and two on his weapon’s consol, held the twelve shot box launchers rarely seen by anyone these days. Not counting missions here on Child of Harmony, he had used them only twice before, both times during his academy days. All cadets were expected to make at least one run over the range with them.

Pylons Three and Four were encumbered with the two Atlas bunker busters he was carrying. The Atlas was a 250kg bomb designed to penetrate hardened targets such as missile silos or reinforced bunkers. It had a destructive capability out of proportion to its seemingly small size, almost bordering on a mini-nuke in the results it could produce. He had great confidence in its ability to do the job, and in his ability to deliver it on target. He had never dropped anything bigger, though
Sutherland
did carry them among other nastier things. Nukes were never used on planetary targets of course, but again
Sutherland
did carry them.