The Stars Came Back (53 page)

On the field before them is
Tajemnica
, front landing ramp down, dirt piled up around the corners where it plowed into the field, lying at odd angles with its ass up in the air with multiple landing gear failures, looking more like a derelict than a space ship. In front are a couple of dirty wheeled APCs topped with gun turrets pointing at jaunty angles. In front of each, two ranks of six troops in full modern combat armor are in ragged, uneven lines, as if for inspection having come in right from a battle. They are off to each side of the ramp a bit, leaving room for other vehicles to board or offload. They are all armed differently, no two appear to have the exact same collection of weaponry, and a couple are missing limbs and have obvious prosthetic replacements. Experienced pros, not just run-of-the-mill uniforms.

Kraut looks at them incredulously.

Lag, wearing full modern armor and helmet so he can’t be identified, walks up to Kraut, who looks at them with growing rage plain on his face. Lag, with exaggerated casualness, brushes some dust from his armor and looks over the arrayed troops as he approaches.

L
ag: (Briskly casual) Sorry ‘bout the landing field; in a bit of a hurry. We had some excitement playing tag with a SAM battery on the way over. Glad to see you have them all ready to go. We can start loading any time.

Kraut: (
Apoplectic, getting right up into Lag’s face) WHO THE FUCK’RE YOU, AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN LOAD?!

Unperturbed, Lag hands Kraut an e-reader, who knocks it aside
. The old lawyer with balance scale badge picks it up and starts scanning through it. Kraut glares at Lag, face to tinted armor visor.

L
ag: I am here to immediately take command of all available weapons and volunteers I can transport to battle-

Kraut: WHOSE ORDERS AND WHO THE FUCK’RE YOU?!

Lag: According to those orders, I’m the acting Col of the 9th Plataean Space Marine assault battalion. Which means, at the moment, I’m
your
immediate superior,
Major
.

Kraut: (
Looking at his lawyer) WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY?!

Lawyer: (
A slow smile spreading across his face) He’s right. These orders
do
let him take command of all garrison material, vehicles, volunteer troops, in full company increments, that he can provide transport for, if they are needed for immediate field combat deployment or violation enforcement action.

Lag: The Kiv are in level breach, so we have about a day and a half to deal with the violators.

Kraut: OVER MY DEAD BODY!

Lag
: (Conversationally) I’d really rather not have to arrange that (takes his helmet off).

Kraut
: YOU!?

Lag
: (Briskly) Glad to see you again, too. Like old times. Now, let’s get loaded, shall we?

Kraut
: (To formation) NOBODY MOVE! (Then, viciously, to lawyer with balance badge) until we get to the bottom of this!

Lag
: Oh, yeah. Did you know your security pass-codes are fairly predictable?

He
signals with his finger over his head in a circular motion.

Lag:
ROUND ‘EM UP!

A
ll the grav tanks and grav APCs in the main formation emit the whining of grav-drives powering up and rise, moving slowly forward between the ranks of soldiers. The crewmen jump out of the way.

Kraut
: STOP! FREEZE! GET BACK IN FORMATION!

LA
G: (Casually) Oh, can it, Major; the computers can’t hear you. Well, actually, they
can
, they just won’t pay
you
any attention.

Kraut
: You CAN’T take them all; you don’t have room! You couldn’t get more than half of them on board, and your orders are only for COMPANY strength units! (To tanks) GET BACK IN LINE!

LAG:
Watch.

The tanks and APCs move slowly toward
Tajemnica
. As they get closer,
Tajemnica
seems to move in an anthropomorphic way, like a fighter shaking off a punch or a dog shaking off water after a swim. As it shakes dirt from the landing free and gets its many landing strut legs back under it, the two dozen large oblong octagonal armor plates shake loose and flutter out, then slide back from across pits arranged along its flanks and top. One of them has a deep and ragged crater in it; they didn’t manage to dodge every SAM. As the first tank approaches, it bounces on its grav field a couple of times, each time a bit higher, jumps up, catches, and swings into a lower flank position and locks into place. The hull plates slide partially back into place, covering part of the tanks, leaving the turret free. The top flank tanks have to bounce higher to settle into their spots. The top tanks bounce up and jump onto the nose above the lowered ramp, glide up and back into a position. Very quickly, all 24 of the tanks are attached.

At the same time, the APCs line up and slide smoothly up the ramp into the relative dark of the cargo bay, now mostly clear of the hastily boarded wheeled units.

Kraut and his toadies stare in disbelief. He looks back and sees his two chromed tanks haven’t moved. He smiles evilly.

Kraut: You don’t have room for any more
, so, you can’t take any!

Lag:
Still have room on the bow ramp. They’ll be last to load. Stern ramp is full.
Tajemnica
has a surprising amount of room. Too bad you can’t have one.

Kraut: (
Sputters more, red faced, looking like he’s on the verge of a stroke)

Lag: (
To Kraut) Thought so.

Lag steps forward, past Kraut, to address
the large troop formation

Lag: Hardware I can requisition. Troops need to volunteer. We need to go commit some major gratuitous violence on four Kiv battalions that violated tech-level terms of combat by using prohibited munitions, causing casualties. We
have lots of bad guys, and lots of ammo. Rules of engagement are to shoot anyone or anything that moves in the zone with whatever you’ve got. Or, shoot it just to make sure it doesn’t
start
to move. We have a 34-hour window. Combat pay, and bonuses for prompt completion. Everyone volunteering to come under my command for this mission at this time, take one step forward.

As a group, the entire formation steps forward with the crash of boots, except Kraut’s toadies, and shouts a thunderous “HOOAH, SIR!” The lawyer looks at the troops, then Kraut. He hands the e-reader with orders to one of the toadies and steps over to Lag’s side. One of the platoon leaders marches briskly over and salutes Lag.

Lt Saber: Permission to load, sir?

Lag: (
Returning salute) Make it happen. (Lag nods toward Allonia, now standing nearby in her shiny new high-tech armor, carrying a full sized battle rifle) Follow her; she’ll show you were to go and draw ammo and supplies to get ready.

As
LT Saber walks after Allonia he produces a cigar and sticks it in his mouth with a grin.

Kraut: (
Incredulous) LAG, WHAT’N’HELL is a
breeder
like that doing in ARMOR?

Lag: (
Deadpan) Careful. She’s a civilian. A deadly one.
She
doesn’t have to take your shit.

Allonia stops and
pivots about. She walks back to face Kraut while the guys around stare.

Kraut: (
With a snarl, leaning nose-to-nose) Who do you think you are?

Allonia: (
Sweetly) The
person
that has seen more action, killed more men, and saved more lives in the last two months than you have in the last twenty years. The one taking
your
tanks into battle while you stand here objecting.

She
does a sharp about-face and walks back toward
Tajemnica
with Lt Saber.

The
remaining three infantry platoon and four tank platoon leaders come up, and he points each one to one of the soldiers from
Tajemnica
. They start marching forward to go aboard.

As they start to move,
“The Warrior Song” provides a marching beat.

FADE TO BLACK

Counterattack

FADE IN

INT - DAY - Engineering

Stenson and Alvarez
stand at consoles monitoring progress. Status bars are shifting rapidly, mostly trending toward greens.

Alvarez: Jesus, look at
that! Never seen power flows that high on the ground.

Stenson: Cross linking and synchronizing the power systems from the tanks.
That
should give us a serious boost.

Alvarez: What about their
railguns and lasers?

Stenson: When we’re just flying, we get all the power. In combat they don’t need to fly, so they can use their power to increase rate of fire quite a bit, only heat limited, then feed the excess to us if they
do
heat-limit. Twenty-four tanks, each with a main railgun round every two seconds, every three from the 120mm, twenty per sec on the light railgun, God only knows
how
many from the lasers as they vary the power depending on target but figure on at least one per second…

Alvarez: So with all that, why the gravity bombs on the aft ramp, and
why the missiles?

Stenson: Tactics aren’t really my specialty. The Colonel and First Sergeant usually just say “different tools for different jobs” or “more weapons are better than less.” Ask
Harbin for the grenade story some time. I know he
hates
running out of ammo.

Alvarez looks over the panel a bit, and a light down in a corner blinks a few times, then goes steady as he looks at it.

Alvarez: (Puzzled) What does “Bubblegum status: ALL OUT” mean?

CUT TO

INT - DAY - Bridge

Helton, Quiritis, Lag, Bipasha, Allonia

Bipasha:
Course unchanged, trying to look innocent by not doing anything.

Lag: OK then, go with
Plan A for the orbitals.

Quiritis: Aye-Aye. Approaching drop point. Planetary velocity about nineteen thousand kph. Orbital relative nearly
thirty-eight. Release and dive on calculated,
Taj
.

Ship AI: (OC, normal brisk male voice) Aye-aye. Drop in four. Three. Two. One. Away.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY - Space near
Tajemnica

Tajemnica
is in low orbit above the planet, moving fast. The two dozen grav tanks and their turrets, along with the shifted armor slabs, have changed its appearance considerably. Stark shadows are cast by the sun. The aft cargo ramp is down, and eight cubical crate-like objects, each about a meter on a side, are gently launched in rapid succession from a cradle attached to the ramp deck, small launching pistons extended behind them. They drift away, a few small spurts of attitude jets adjusting their course minutely as they rapidly drift away from
Tajemnica
on their inertia. The space near
Tajemnica
glows slightly, and it slowly pulls away and downward and accelerates, streaking back towards the scattered clouds in the atmosphere below. The space mines speed on their way, slowly dispersing, to greet the orbital platforms.

CUT TO

Tajemnica
Bridge

Lag: Now we go low, give the orbitals something to look at, so they ignore the minor radar signals that look like they are going to miss and hit target Bravo from above.

Helton: We’ll only have eight turrets, though.

Quiritis: We’ll roll. Have twenty turrets on target, the others to provide stern cover.
Load canister rounds in the big guns for the first three shots, then alternate with HE.

Helton: Canister? You sure?

Lag: Makes sense. Twenty thousand tungsten balls every three seconds makes open areas lethal, while the railguns and missiles take the vehicles out. Lasers and light rails can be mostly reserved for shooting incoming, only take out a few vehicles with them.

Quiritis: We can pass a reload of 120mm ammo through the hatch after the obvious targets are gone and we hit the dec
k. Then peel off four tanks and a few APCs to mop up, then on to the next target.

Helton: How long?

Quiritis: Firing for fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. About the same to ground and drop.

Lag: Helton, you and I will try to select the highest priority targets. If you see anything that looks more important for any reason, just tap it on the screen.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY - Airspace high above the second Kiv battalion column