The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword (17 page)

She hadn’t worked much with Drakon in the past, and was impressed now when he accepted her assessment without demanding she come up with something easier even if it was also impossible. “What about heading back for Midway, or Maui?” Drakon asked.

“Neither of those are really an option. The battleship will catch you and blow those freighters apart. There’s no uncertainty. The freighters can’t outrun the battleship if they head for those jump points, and my ships cannot stop the battleship from destroying them.”

“All right.” Drakon rubbed his chin, eyeing her. “It sounds to me, Kommodor, like our best option is going ahead with the landing. As you said, that gives us a fighting chance, which we will not have otherwise.”

“That would be my recommendation, General. You may have to hold guns on the freighter crews to keep them from running before all of your forces are off-loaded. My ships will carry out the planned bombardment of targets on the surface, but after that you will be on your own. I will do everything I can to distract and engage and maybe even damage that battleship, but I cannot promise anything.”

Drakon smiled dourly, his lips pressed into a thin line. “We had a lot more warships available when that battleship attacked Midway, and they couldn’t stop it. Kommodor, from what I have seen of you, and from what both President Iceni and Captain Bradamont have said, we couldn’t ask for a better mobile forces officer to guard our backs against that battleship. I know that you will do everything possible with the forces available to you.”

“Th-thank you, sir.” It was not the response she had expected when she had called Drakon with such horrible news.

“We’ll get down to the surface, take out the Syndicate ground forces, then scatter,” Drakon continued. “If you can keep that battleship occupied for a little while, we’ll get dispersed enough that it will have to worry about bombarding every square meter of that planet in order to get us.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll keep it busy for as long as possible. My flotilla will escort the freighters until we are close enough to the planet to be sure you can off-load without Haris’s warships getting to you. We will protect you to the utmost of our ability. For the people!” Marphissa sat rigidly straight and saluted Drakon.

Drakon smiled again, returning the salute. “For the people,” he echoed. “If the worst happens here, don’t get your forces wiped out fighting a hopeless battle. Get back to Midway and help President Iceni. She can hold out, Midway can hold out, even if we lose all the ground forces here. As long as people like you stick by her.”

He ended the transmission, leaving Marphissa gazing at nothing and blinking away tears.
Damn. And to think I didn’t trust him.
“Kapitan Diaz.”

“Yes, Kommodor?”

“Let’s put our heads together. If there is any way to slow down that battleship with what we’ve got, we need to figure it out. We have to give those ground forces all the time we can.”

“Kommodor . . .” Diaz didn’t look at her as he spoke again in a barely audible voice. “There’s no possible way. They’re doomed.”

“No,” Marphissa said, surprised by the fierceness in her voice. “We were doomed when
Manticore
’s propulsion controls were shot out. Have you forgotten already? But we found a way, and they may find a way. We do not quit, we do not give up, we give them everything that we can, so if they do die on that planet, it will not be because we did not do everything that human skill and courage and effort can achieve. Do you hear me?” She had raised her voice so that it rang across the bridge. “Everyone. Do you hear me? We do not give up, we do not falter, while one of our soldiers still lives and fights on the surface of that planet!”

A ragged chorus of agreement and cheers answered her words, Diaz also raising his head and nodding to her firmly. “Comm specialist,” he said, “send a vid of the Kommodor’s last statement to the other units. Your orders, Kommodor?”

What were her orders? Marphissa wondered. It was one thing to make a sweeping statement about giving the effort her all, but another thing to figure out what specific steps to take.

Marphissa focused on the nearest enemies, those on the planet and those in Haris’s two cruisers. “Since we’re going ahead with the assault on the planet, we’ll accompany the freighters for another half hour. At that point, our warships will break away from the freighters earlier than planned and move to engage Haris’s heavy cruiser and light cruiser. We’ll launch the bombardment as scheduled, but from farther out than planned.”

“We’ll get scatter,” Diaz warned. “It’s not just the greater distance from the planet when we launch. We’ll also be dropping the projectiles at a lower angle through the atmosphere. We can’t have pinpoint precision under those circumstances.”

Marphissa scowled, studying the bombardment plan. It did call for aiming at specific portions of the snake headquarters complex, but Diaz was right that the odds of a perfect hit were low when they had to launch under difficult circumstances. Under the Syndicate, no one would have been allowed to worry about rounds that missed the target and struck in the surrounding city, but she did not want to take even one step back onto that road. “There might be an answer. Show me a circular error probable for a bombardment round aimed at the center of the snake complex under the new range and atmospheric entry angle we’ll be using.”

Diaz gestured to his weapons specialist, who worked frantically for a few moments.

A circle appeared on Marphissa’s image of the bombardment targets. A circle centered on the snake headquarters complex and extending about four meters beyond its boundaries into the wide-open area that surrounded the complex. “There’s our answer. It’s not perfect, but it will have to do.”

“Kommodor,” a puzzled Diaz asked, “I’m sorry, but I do not—”

“We aim every round at the center of the complex! Most will hit near there. The rest should scatter randomly within this error circle, meaning they will hit everywhere inside the complex.”

“But we can’t be sure they’ll hit everywhere,” Diaz objected. “It’s statistical and random. One little patch may take a dozen hits, and another nearby area might be untouched.”

“I know that.” Marphissa kept her voice level with effort. “It’s still our best option because aiming for specific points will face the same circular error probable for every shot, only centered wherever that particular projectile was aimed. And any spot that doesn’t take a direct hit but sustains a lot of near misses is still going to take some damage.”

Diaz grimaced, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, then nodded. “Yes, Kommodor. It is our best option if we want to do as much damage to the complex as possible under the launch conditions we will face.”

“I want to hold back two projectiles on each heavy cruiser and one on each light cruiser. The ground forces might need a few more rounds dropped in their support. Everything else will go into the bombardment. Have your specialists modify it and let me know as soon as the revised plan is ready.”

“Yes, Kommodor.”

Marphissa looked to Haris’s cruisers next. She had been expecting them to finally strike at the freighters just before the ground forces began landing, but that had been before the Syndicate flotilla appeared. It was now clear that the cruisers had been kept on a short leash to avoid scaring off the Midway flotilla before it was too deeply committed to the operation to be able to get the ground forces and freighters out of this star system safely.

If she went after them once the ground forces were down, they would run. She could chase them all over this star system, driving down the fuel reserves on all of her ships, and have no hope of catching them. But if she didn’t go after them . . . “Do you know what they’re planning on doing?” she asked Diaz, then answered her own question. “They’re going to wait to see if we go after them. If we do, they’ll run and frustrate us while forcing us to use up our fuel cells. If we don’t, they’ll charge through our formation just as the freighters are dropping shuttles, creating an awful mess and potentially taking out a lot of ground forces while they are helpless.”

Diaz looked from her to his display, then made a helpless gesture. “I agree with your assessment, Kommodor. What will you do, then?”

“I’m going to do neither, Kapitan,” Marphissa announced. “I’m not going to chase them all over this star system, and I’m not going to sit here waiting for them.”

“But . . .”

“We’re going to lunge at them as if beginning an all-out pursuit, then, after they take off to avoid us, brake to stay near the freighters.” Marphissa shook her head. “No. Not all of us. We’re going to need all of our fuel reserves. I’m going to leave the Hunter-Killers positioned above the ground forces’ landing site. They can’t do much there, but they’ll be able to provide some close support, and they’ll be conserving their fuel cells.”

“Then what?” Diaz asked. “After we abort our pursuit of Haris’s cruisers?”

“I expect the freighters to scatter once the last ground forces have left them. At that point,
Manticore
and
Gryphon
will shadow Haris’s heavy cruiser, which I expect will try to pick off the scattered freighters one by one.
Hawk
and
Eagle
will shadow Haris’s light cruiser. Maybe one of Haris’s ships will make a mistake.”

Diaz grimaced. “What about the Syndicate flotilla? What about the battleship?”

Marphissa blew out a long breath before replying. “I am hoping that, as we screen the freighters and try to take out Haris’s cruisers, one of us will come up with some brilliant and effective means of dealing with that battleship.”

“Kommodor—”

“Dammit, I know! Unless we come up with some other ideas, the only thing we can do is stay out of the engagement envelopes of the weapons on that battleship. CEO Boucher is not going to cut loose her remaining escorts. Syndicate regulations call for battleships to have escorts. She won’t go against Syndicate policy.”

Diaz gave her a grim look. “If she decides it is necessary, Happy Hua
will
bombard the hell out of that planet in order to get as many of our ground forces as possible.”

“I know.” Marphissa left it at that. She had nothing else to offer, no ideas to present. Instead, she touched her comm controls. “
Sentry
,
Sentinel
,
Scout
,
Defender
, you are designated flotilla three.
Sentinel
is senior ship for flotilla three. Proceed to a position in low orbit above the ground forces’ landing area and provide close support.”

She reached out to her display, designating Haris’s heavy cruiser and light cruiser as the objectives for intercept, then waited the fraction of a second for the
Manticore
’s automated systems to come up with the necessary maneuvers. “
Manticore
,
Gryphon
,
Hawk
,
Eagle
, immediate execute come port two three degrees, down zero two degrees, accelerate to point two light speed.”

The four Midway cruisers slewed about under the push of their maneuvering thrusters, their bows swinging past the vector that would have brought them into position above the planet. As they steadied out on the new course their main propulsion units lit off, pushing the warships onto a path that would bring them into firing range of Haris’s warships in twenty minutes.

Marphissa tapped her display a few more times, confirming that the weapons specialists on
Manticore
had adapted the bombardment plan to the new positions and vectors from which it would be fired. “
Manticore
,
Gryphon
,
Hawk
,
Eagle
. Launch bombardment using modified plan echo as your ships cross the firing point on your vectors.”

For better or for worse, the battle for Ulindi had begun.

THE
bombardment projectiles fell for kilometer after kilometer, picking up energy as they plummeted toward the surface, tracing streaks of fire across the planet’s sky as they dropped through atmosphere that grew thicker with every meter. Rocks had been among the first weapons that humans employed against each other, and these projectiles were really just refined versions of rocks, projectiles of solid metal that depended on mass and accumulated energy to inflict damage on their targets. But where humanity’s first ancestors had lobbed rocks with uncertain aim, human technology and ingenuity had advanced to the point where these projectiles could be dropped from great distances with incredible accuracy against targets that had no ability to dodge.

Targets like buildings on the surface of a planet.

Targets like the snake headquarters complex, heavily protected by walls and barriers, fences and mines, guard towers at frequent intervals, many portions of the headquarters buried under armor and layers of rock proof against most weapons.

The projectiles fell to earth, and the earth and the works of humanity broke beneath them.

—

MORGAN
woke to the shuddering of the building she was in. She knew that sensation and, in the instant of waking, unsure where she was or why, wondered if she was one of the targets of the attack. A moment later, as memory returned, she felt a lilt of savage joy at knowing it represented an orbital bombardment falling on her enemies some distance from where she was.

The joy lasted just long enough for her to recall the events of last night and for her to start feeling the stiffness and pain of her body. Morgan took several deep breaths, willing away the pain, putting herself once again in that state where mere physical limitations could not stop her. Going to a medical clinic to get her wounded arm looked at was out of the question. The snakes would have every clinic and hospital within a hundred kilometers of the transmitter site staked out, waiting for someone to show up with wounds from gunfire.

She twisted, pulling out the first-aid kit from the vehicle as well as some emergency medical supplies she had earlier stolen and stashed here in case they were needed. It took some awkward maneuvering in the limited space available to do what needed to be done to her arm to stop the pain and allow it to function again. There would be a price to pay later on for pushing the limb into use despite the injury, but there was always a price to pay no matter what. She took meds to clear her mind as well, and to compensate for the blood loss she had endured, then wolfed down special rations designed to boost healing and blood regeneration.

Having done what she could without access to medical care, the pain blocked, her right arm almost fully useful again, Morgan paused to think through the situation. The bombardment meant that General Drakon was here. He must be very close to the planet or already in orbit. Assault doctrine called for launching the landing as soon as possible after the preliminary bombardment to take advantage of the disruption and damage caused. The shuttles would be starting their drops soon.

It was too late to warn the general. She could not get to a sufficiently powerful transmitter in time even though the snakes who had been hunting her would now have a lot of other things to worry them as the attack went down.

But she had a major assignment yet to complete. Making sure that the snakes could not use their alternate command complex to detonate their hidden nukes on this planet. Morgan had done the preliminary work, but she needed to finish the job so that the codes would go nowhere even though the snake systems would think everything was working perfectly.

If she failed at this, the general would die, and she would as well.

—

DRAKON
paused before entering the shuttle he would ride down to the surface. It was already full of soldiers, inhuman in their battle armor, their armored faceplates offering no clues to the feelings of those inside. “Colonel Malin, how does it look on your ship?”

Malin, occupying a different freighter, answered immediately. “The troops are fine, General. I can’t say the same for the freighter crews. General, Haris has been waiting for us. There may be more surprises on the surface.”

“I’m aware of that, Colonel.” He managed not to snap the reply. Malin looked and sounded as if he were reciting an assessment of an issue in which he had no previous involvement. It would be very easy to lash out at Malin, to blame him for championing this operation, but that not only wouldn’t accomplish anything, it also wouldn’t be fair. The reasons for coming to Ulindi had appeared to everyone to be good ones. “I’m also aware that we have no alternative but to get down there and win.”

“General, have there been any messages directly to you from Colonel Morgan?”

“No. Either she hasn’t spotted anything unexpected on the surface, or she hasn’t been able to get to a transmitter.” The possible reasons why Morgan would not have been able to achieve that task, the sort of obstacles that could stop even her, worried Geary at the moment more than the Syndicate battleship light-hours distant.

“Sir, if Morgan hasn’t taken out the links from the snake alternate command center—”

“I know. But her report indicated she had already done the work on that and only needed to activate the bypasses. We have to assume she succeeded. Once you get down, take charge of sending scouts out to check buildings outside of our perimeter. The ground forces down there have had plenty of warning that we were coming, and plenty of time to dig in at their base, but they might have left teams outside it to harass us.”

“Yes, sir. I regret that I proposed this operation, General. There were obviously aspects to the situation that I was not sufficiently aware of.”

So Malin did feel some guilt, though even now expressing it with cold formality rather than a heated statement of regret. “That’s not important at the moment. What matters is frustrating whatever plans Haris has and finding out whatever other surprises exist before they find us. Focus on that.”

“Yes, sir.” This time Malin’s voice clearly conveyed a determination to make up for his error.

Drakon ended the call to Malin, then took one more long look at his display before issuing the next order. He checked the consolidated status reports of the shuttles and the companies making up the two brigades. “Colonel Gaiene, Colonel Kai. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes, sir,” both replied.

He called the aerospace commander of the shuttles. “Major Barnes, are all shuttles ready to land the first wave?”

“Ready, sir,” she said.

“Kommodor Marphissa, I’m beginning the assault. Good luck.”

“Good luck to you, General,” the Kommodor answered. “We are unable to precisely evaluate the results of the bombardment of the snake headquarters complex due to the dust and debris masking our sensors, but the complex is assessed to have been totally destroyed.” She was young enough and inexperienced enough for her worries to sound in her voice but had spent enough time in command not to extend the farewell with platitudes or meaningless promises.

“Thanks,” Drakon said. “We’ll finish the job.”

He switched from the external command circuit for talking to the warships and back to the internal circuit tying together every unit under his command. “All units,” Drakon said. “Commence assault.”

He boarded the shuttle, locked one armored fist onto the brace that would hold him in place, watched the ramp seal, then felt the shuttle lurch and fall. All around, other shuttles dropped off from the freighters carrying them and dove toward the surface, firing chaff barrages ahead of them as they fell.

Any landing operation against opposition was a matter of tight guts, pounding hearts, and hope. Hope that your shuttle would make it to the surface without being hit, hope that you would get off the shuttle without being hit, hope that you would find cover without being hit, hope that the shuttle had dropped you in the right place and you weren’t surrounded by enemies, hope that somehow you would survive this whole mess and come out in one piece on the winning side.

Drakon felt the shuttle he was riding rock several times from near misses as it dropped. He called up a display showing the faces of all the soldiers in the shuttle with him, stacked across his helmet’s faceplate like figures on playing cards. “They’re lousy shots,” he told the soldiers, trying to put the best face he could on the situation.

Most of the soldiers smiled, though nerves made a lot of the smiles resemble grimaces. “It’s pretty hot down there, General,” one offered.

“Not nearly as hot as some places I’ve been,” Drakon said. He steadied himself as the shuttle jolted again. The pilots driving these birds were veterans of the aerospace forces, and despite the hideous losses often sustained in landings against opposition, a fair number of the pilots had made drops in the face of determined enemy fire more than once. They were pushing their experience and their birds to the limits.

Drakon’s shuttle was coming down so quickly that his armored boots threatened to rise off the deck of the troop compartment. Another small virtual window on his helmet display showed the view outside, which right now consisted of sky littered with all of the active and passive countermeasures, collectively called chaff, that the shuttles had fired down into the atmosphere before descending. Mixed in with the chaff was the dust and fine debris that had in some cases risen high in the atmosphere from the recent bombardment of the snake headquarters complex only thirty kilometers from where Drakon’s troops were landing. All of that junk did a pretty decent job of confusing and blinding sensors on the ground, which was the only reason any of the shuttles had survived even this far into their drops to the surface. The surface defenses were probably firing on manual aiming, drastically reducing their chances of a hit, but some of their shots were coming uncomfortably close. “Remember the drill when we hit dirt. Most of you have done this before. Anyone who hasn’t, you’re just going to have to trust me.”

That got some laughs, even from the newer soldiers who had joined Drakon’s division after the exile to Midway. Joking with the troops wasn’t something the average Syndicate CEO did, but Drakon believed that the fact that he had rarely acted like the average Syndicate CEO had been one of the things that had earned the loyalty of these soldiers. The average Syndicate CEO wouldn’t have been riding in this shuttle, going down with the troops charged with carrying out his plan, sharing their fate.

Of course, he hadn’t had much real choice. The freighters would be sitting ducks for the Syndicate warships unless that Kommodor could pull off a miracle. At least on the surface, he would have a chance to shoot back at the Syndicate.

The red lights on their helmet displays changed to yellow, warning that the ground was coming up fast. “Brace yourselves!” Drakon ordered. “They’re going to brake hard!”

The words had barely left his mouth before g-forces slammed his armored boots flat to the deck. Drakon grunted as his body tried to compact onto the lower portions of his armor, painfully emphasizing that Syndicate armor designs did not incorporate nearly enough cushioning. His internal organs felt like they were compressing into his waist and legs, too, but he endured it, knowing it would not last.

After so many years of war and so many years laboring under the arbitrary, cruel, and profit-driven Syndicate, Drakon believed that was half the trick to remaining sane. Knowing that nothing would last, that no matter how bad things got, sooner or later they would either get better or possibly worse, but at least different.

The shuttle grounded hard enough to jar Drakon’s teeth even through the armor, the ramp dropping at almost the same instant. “Out!” he yelled, leaping out onto the surface of Ulindi’s primary inhabited world.

He let one foot land, using it to propel himself forward and down toward a building that loomed close by. The door was locked, but Drakon in his heavy battle armor smashed through it as if it were made of tinfoil. That had been a safe bet since the Syndicate Internal Security Service forbade nonofficial buildings from having doors strong enough to withstand forced entry. The rule made it a lot easier for the snakes to get into places, but also for attacking soldiers. Drakon rolled onto the floor inside, barely noting the office furnishings being hurled aside by the impacts with his armor, then came to his feet, weapon questing for targets.

Other soldiers from the shuttle came diving through the door, others through two nearby windows, and several more through the wall. Drakon knew the building could handle the abuse. Like most modern structures, it was built with a strong frame that could flex under stress and curtain walls over and inside the frame that also had some ability to absorb stress and vibration. Punching holes in the curtain walls didn’t weaken the structure much.

The sergeant in charge of this unit ordered the soldiers to take up firing positions and told off several to scout around and ensure no defenders were elsewhere inside this structure. Confident that nearby security was being competently handled, Drakon knelt to study his helmet display.