Peace Army (26 page)

It would seem that a culture that could develop a vessel capable of interstellar flight could also develop technology that did not rely on such primitive methods of landing.

If he ever met one of the Waa, that would be the first question he asked.

* * *

Titan watched the external vid screens in silence as the mothership entered the atmosphere of Telgora. He waited patiently for a view of the planet’s surface and was eventually rewarded with a view of the dark side.

A thin band of light at the top of the screen grew into an ever-widening stretch as the ship closed the distance to the day side of the planet. The knowledge that the Telgorans lived under the surface allowed them to select a landing site much closer to Patahbay’s home village than before.

Titan released a heavy sigh as the ship settled into its final leg of the three-month journey.

I’m back
, he thought.
As if five years on this god-awful rock wasn’t long enough.

At least he would not be forced to eat
tatal
this time.

* * *

The first faint touches of Family washed over Patahbay’s mind like cool water over a burn. The rumbling of the ship went unnoticed as the welcoming embrace of his kind grew stronger and stronger. He fell back on the over-soft bed and basked contentedly in the comfort that was offered.

When the connection was strong enough, he shared his memories of the trip: the long voyage, the misery of being alone, the visit to a foreign planet, the dismay of defeat at
dindin
, the knowledge of making decisions independent of the Family. His memories generated intense emotions and feelings within the Family, and he accepted them and made them his own. He accepted the regret and the sorrow others felt over his extended loneliness. He accepted the excitement that his travel created in those who had never left the comfort of their own villages. He accepted—and understood—the disbelief that a human could defeat him at
dindin
.

He accepted that after months as an island, he was finally back with the Family.

He was complete again.

Before he gave himself over fully to the mass mind, he shared one final experience—the recent discussion he had with the general. It concerned the invaders and the mines they worked. Of all the experiences he could share, this was the most important.

Shiale
would be required.

* * *

The alarm beeped abruptly, grabbed Chor’s attention. The last time the monitor beeped, almost seven months ago, a mothership had lifted off from the planet. A mothership that no one within the mines had even known was there.

The Minith mine worker glanced at the monitor to which the alarm was attached. The incoming data showed a mothership. But this time it was landing, not taking off.

Chor performed as he had been trained. After the last event, detailed instructions had come to them from General Soo on Waa.

The civilian smiled and sounded an alarm that notified his superior of the incoming vessel. He was confident he had performed his duty well. The rest would be up to the Minith soldiers stationed on the planet. He did not envy them. There was a reason they never left the security of the mining base.

Telgorans were a nasty bunch.

Chapter 38

Grant sat in his command carrier. It was hot, cramped, and smelled of the lubricant that was used to keep the equipment running. He was surrounded by a team of six soldiers, comm gear, and a full complement of weapons and ammunition. The carrier was just one among the gathered mass of forces crowding the loading bay. All their vehicles, carriers, and foot soldiers were locked, loaded, and ready to disembark. Some would set up defensive positions surrounding the mothership while others had more distant goals.

Thanks to the information contained in the ship’s databanks, as well as the first-person accounts from Titan and Patahbay, the humans had very good intel about the Minith forces they faced. While they did not know how many aliens were stationed on the planet, they knew their enemies’ exact locations and how they were programmed to fight. But, unlike the Telgorans they were accustomed to fighting, the human warriors did not plan to attack the mining bases head-on—or on foot.

Grant knew he could not hope to overrun all six of the mining bases in a single attempt. They were too well defended and the human force was simply too small.

Instead, the plan called for an air strike against the closest mine, using their full contingent of fighter carriers. The fighters would then provide air support for a follow-up attack of ground soldiers inserted by carrier behind the walls of the mining base. If they were quick and decisive in their movement to contact, there was a better-than-even chance that the Minith defending the base would be surprised.

It was a solid plan, but one which would only work once against such heavily fortified bases. That was fine with Grant. He did not plan to attack them in the same manner a second time, but if they thought he would and set up their defenses to protect from similar attacks, all the better.

The exhaustion that had plagued him during his last two years on Earth was a distant memory. The promise of battle was upon them and the adrenalin-fueled anxiety he always felt before engaging in war had kicked in. The training, the planning, and—worst of all—the waiting were done. Now, it came down to the doing.

The mothership spat out its final landing roar and settled onto the face of Telgoran. Grant prepared himself for the rush that would come with the opening of the bay door. A quick survey of the half-dozen soldiers in his carrier showed a quiet and subdued bunch. Half were chanting a Peace mantra.

He wondered how the rest of his forces were holding up. For all but a few dozen who were with him in Violent’s Prison, this would mark their first foray into combat. As former citizens of a Peaceful world, they were as green as green could be. At least in his time, newbs had a few schoolyard scrapes under their belt. These men and women had extensive weapons training, but limited hand-to-hand training and sparring experience. He hoped it would be enough to see them through when the time came.

A sudden quiet filled the bay as the mothership shut down all engines.

“Here we go, troops,” Grant said evenly to the soldiers seated around him. “Keep your eyes open and your wits about you.”

The soldiers turned their eyes toward Grant. A couple nodded. One turned her head to the rear of the carrier and got sick. Grant was glad he had thought to provide his crew with barf bags and waited for others to follow suit. He wondered how the troops in the other vehicles were faring as the carrier lifted from the floor and whizzed through the widening gap of the bay door. The barf bags weren’t standard issue.

* * *

Chor watched the exterior monitors, an unusual experience for him. Unless it was attack season for the Telgorans, the monitors sat silent and dark, but he had turned them on to watch the preparations being made by the Minith warriors. As a youngster, he had considered a life as a soldier. The thought of a multi-year assignment on a distant planet had caused him to take a different path, though—and now look where he was, stationed on a distant planet for three years. What was worse, his current posting required him to be holed up in a tiny room, monitoring alarms and monitors that beeped twice a year if he was lucky.

Well, today was his lucky day. Activity showed on the monitor.

The soldiers on the screen walked slowly through their preparations. Chor could tell they did not relish the thought of venturing beyond the safety of the walls. They knew what would happen if they were forced to land and were unfortunate enough to run into a band of Telgorans.

The soldiers were forgotten when the far-sight monitor alarm sounded for the second time that day.

Chor had not expected it to register activity now that the mothership had landed, but it did. It was telling him a small fleet of fast-moving vehicles was headed his way. And they were not Minith.

The monitor was not very precise in the detail it offered. It could provide data on ships and other vehicles that were above the horizon. It also compared the details of those vehicles against a large database of known Minith and non-Minith vehicles. To Chor’s consternation, the system did not recognize many of the inbound vehicles. But the few it did recognize appeared to be native-made carriers from the planet Earth.

Which made no sense.

Chor verified the information being fed to him by the system. He then verified it a second time. Before he alerted his superior that carriers from Earth were headed their way, he wanted to be sure of his work. The last thing he wanted was for his idiot boss to think of him as incompetent.

The incoming ships were less than five kilometers away when he felt confident of his assessment.

He slapped the communication switch and received an immediate reply.

“Druk, this is Chor,” he spoke calmly and quietly. His superior might be an idiot, but he had no desire to raise the idiot’s ire. “Can you come down here and look at this?”

The ships were now four kilometers from the base.

* * *

The carriers passed quickly through the bitter cold of the sunless side of Telgora. The brutal winds they had been warned to expect tossed Grant and the other soldiers roughly about. Without the benefit of seat belts, they were left to hold tightly to their seats, and all strained against the forces beating at the carrier. The bitter cold gave way to cool, which gave way to warm. In turn, the warm turned hot as the carrier passed across the twilit band of the planet’s equator. They were now fully ensconced by the brightness of the sunny, southern side of the planet.

Grant waited for the inevitable change in their flight pattern. He did not have long to wait. Their progress slowed and the carrier began a steep, rapid descent. The buffeting of the wind nearly vanished as the carrier landed upon the open, rocky plain.

It would be a brief, but important, stop.

The Minith mining base sat less than a kilometer north of the equator. The plan called for their ground forces to halt at the equator while the fighters went at the base and began their work.

“Get ready. Check your weapons and your gear,” he commanded to the troops in his carrier. They were clearly ready, but it never hurt to have everyone perform a final check. The rough ride could have loosened a strap or dislodged a weapon or an important piece of gear. Grant opened communications with the other carriers in his force. He passed along a similar order, then checked his own weapons and gear.

Like the other soldiers in his carrier, he was dressed in the olive jumpsuits that had become their standard uniform. The Kevlar helmet he had been required by regulations to wear in his previous life had been replaced by a simple billed cap. The loss of protection provided by a helmet was a trade-off for comfort, visibility, and minimal weight. The Minith’s reliance on energy-based weapons versus projectile weapons made the helmets almost useless anyway. Kevlar might stop a bullet, but it would not stop an energy pulse—which was why his forces also did not wear any type of body armor, except for knee pads.

Like the men around him, Grant carried one of the rifles Tane had created for the ground forces. He also carried an improved version of a pulse handgun, two separate knives—one on his fighting harness and another, smaller blade tucked into his right boot—and an assortment of small, but powerful, grenades. The fighting harness held an array of other gear and equipment he wanted at hand when the fighting started.

One of the great things about being the only warrior on a planet was the ability to decide what gear was useful and what was not. No decrees or edicts rolled down from desk-bound superiors on what he could and could not carry into battle. Similarly, he was careful to instruct his forces on what primary loads—a rifle, a knife, and ammunition—
had
to be carried. As for their secondary gear, he trained them on each piece so they understood its use and why it was important, but, with few exceptions, he allowed them to adjust their secondary loads as they saw fit. In every instance where he checked—and he checked often—he had never been disappointed in the choices his men and women made.

Satisfied that his gear was in order, he visually inspected the others in the carrier. They seemed in order. The nausea that had passed through the group earlier seemed to have disappeared.

He heard the first communication from the advance fighters fill the carrier.

“Flight Alpha has target in sight. No hostile fire outbound.”

That was good. The vehicles were in range of the Minith, but the aliens were not firing. Yet.

“Flight Bravo. Same.”

The two flight groups each consisted of six fighters. Each fighter was armed with four missiles. Their goal was to advance to the mining base, select the targets that looked the most promising, and fire their missiles at those targets. Without specific information on what existed behind those walls, it was the best plan Grant could produce.

Two more flights of carriers—Flights Charlie and Delta—were sixty seconds behind. They would have the benefit of receiving intelligence from the two flight groups before starting their attacks.

Each group would make two passes at the base before pulling out and providing cover for Grant and the ground forces to enter the fray.

Grant’s right leg shook with nervous anticipation. These were his forces heading into harm’s way. They were men and women he had come to know and respect over the past few years. They had spouses, mothers, fathers, and children waiting on Earth. Despite all the training he had given them, they had been raised on a diet of Peace for most of their lives. They were as green as green could get.

Grant was not. He understood the rules of war. He knew that each soldier, regardless of whether they lived or died in the moments ahead, would be damaged by this battle.