A Small Colonial War (Ark Royal Book 6) (2 page)

Chapter One

Clarke III, Pegasus System

“The tin-cans are retreating, Governor.”

“Understood,” Governor Harry Brown said.  “Did they inflict any damage?”

“I don’t believe so,” Lillian Turner said.  She’d never expected to be manning a tactical console, but she was the closest thing to a tactical officer on the colony.  “They merely exchanged long-range fire with the Indian ships and then bugged out.”

She sucked in her breath, feeling fear pulsing through her chest.  She’d grown used to the thought of spending the rest of her days on Clarke; it might not be Earth, or even Luna City, but the rapidly-growing colony
did
have a sort of charm.  The colonists had eyed her doubtfully for a few months, then decided her obvious willingness to work - and make up for the sins of the past - was a point in her favour.  She'd even made a handful of friends.  But now ...

I may be sent back to Earth
, she thought, morbidly. 
And who knows what will happen to me there
?

“Keep monitoring them,” Brown ordered.  The Governor hadn't been one of her biggest supporters at first, but he’d given her a fair chance.  “Let me know if they attempt to communicate with us.”

“Yes, sir,” Lillian said.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the viewscreen and sighed.  Her dark eyes looked tired and worn and her dark hair was hanging down around her face; her pale skin looked too pale after months on Clarke, where the sun barely shone.  She hadn’t had much sleep since the first warning message from Vesy ... and none, since the Indian ships had jumped into the system and commenced a leisurely flight towards Clarke.  They could have been at Clarke within hours, if they’d pushed their drives hard.  Instead, they’d taken over a day to make a slow stately progress to the gas giant’s moon.

Probably wanted to make us sweat
, she thought, darkly. 
They know damn well no one’s coming to help us
.

Her eyes sharpened as new icons appeared on the display.  “Governor,” she said.  “They’re launching assault shuttles.”

The Governor rose to his feet and paced over to stand behind her.  “ETA?”

“Thirty minutes,” Lillian said.  He didn't ask where they were going, but then there was no real need.  There wasn't anywhere else on Clarke III worth visiting, save for the colony and its two thousand colonists.  “They’re not even trying to hide their presence.”

“They may be a little bit nervous about flying through the snowstorms,” the Governor said, curtly.  “
We’re
nervous and we’ve been on this planet for a year.”

Lillian rather doubted it - the Royal Marines she’d met had been gung ho about diving into hurricanes and she had a feeling the Indian marines were very similar - but she kept that thought to herself.  Instead, she tracked the Indian shuttles as they entered the atmosphere, monitoring them through the handful of stealthed satellites in orbit.  The Indians would find them eventually and shut them down, she was sure, if they bothered to make the effort.  Both sides knew the colony couldn't hold out for long.

“My best guess is that they’re going to come down near Davis Mountain,” she said, as the shuttles dove further into the planet’s atmosphere.  “That would put them within easy walking distance of the colony.”

“Looks like it,” the Governor agreed. 

He stepped back and keyed his wristcom, then started to mutter orders to the scratch defence force.  A handful of soldiers - mainly reservists - and a couple of colonial policemen ... it wasn't enough to do more than slow the Indians down for a few minutes.  Lillian and the other colonists had been digging trenches and improvising traps ever since they’d gotten the word, but they simply didn't have the men to hold for long.

And if the Indians get tired of our defiance, they can simply drop rocks on us from high overhead
, Lillian thought, grimly. 
They can smash us flat if they don’t mind losing the colony
.

It was a chilling thought.  There had been an agreement - ever since the human race had started expanding through the tramlines - that colonies weren't to be bombarded indiscriminately.  Whatever the cause of the disagreement - or war - it didn't excuse destroying the only thing keeping humans alive in the unforgiving vastness of interstellar space.  But if the Indians had been prepared to allow countless people to die on Vesy, they might well be prepared to bombard Clarke into submission from orbit.  They wouldn't be able to use the colony for themselves ...

They’ll want the colony
, she told herself, hoping desperately that she was right. 
It would take them too long to duplicate our work
.

Her console beeped, once.  “Sir,” she said.  “The Indians have landed.”

“Try and get a drone over there,” the Governor ordered.  “I’ll have the defenders stand ready.”

Lillian nodded, clicking through the options on her screen until she located the drones and launched one into the air.  She’d flown drones before, on Earth, but it was nowhere near so easy to fly them on Clarke.  The snowstorms would happily knock a drone out of the air if she made a single mistake, leaving the colony without any eyes in the sky.  Indeed, the Governor had banned flying drones in anything other than the direst emergencies.  The beancounters on Earth would complain - loudly - if Clarke expended them all within the first month.

We should have practiced flying them anyway
, she thought, as the drone made its way towards Davis Mountain.  Davis had been a colonist who’d gone climbing in a protective suit, only to be caught in an avalanche and buried somewhere below the half-frozen ocean. 
We might have been able to improve the drone guidance systems before now
.

She gritted her teeth as a particularly nasty gust of wind slapped the drone, sending it cart-wheeling across the sky before she managed to regain control.  The RPV had a computer core that was meant to handle the basics of flying, but it hadn’t developed its own understanding of the environment yet.  In theory, a drone that crashed could have the core salvaged and loaded into another drone - thus allowing the second drone to learn from the mistakes of the first - but in practice they simply hadn't wanted to waste the tiny vehicles.  That, she suspected, might have been a mistake.

“Contact,” she said.  “Three shuttles; seventy armoured men.”

The Governor bent over her shoulder - so close she could smell the odour of tobacco on his breath - as the Indians came into view.  The assault shuttles didn't look that different from British designs - the war had forced the various Great Powers to standardise as much as they could - but the armoured combat suits looked more primitive than the suits she’d seen on
Warspite
.  Their wearers were already starting the short march towards the colony.  Behind them, a handful of light tanks rolled off the shuttles, one of them rotating a gun to point towards the drone.  Moments later, the screen went blank.

“Contact lost,” she said, formally.  “They’re on their way, Governor.”

“Noted,” the Governor said.

The minutes ticked by with agonising slowness.  Lillian knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the defenders couldn't hope to win, yet she also knew the Governor couldn't simply order a surrender.  Whatever happened afterwards, the colony could not be said to have surrendered without a fight.  But as the monitors started to pick up the advancing forces, she found herself wishing the Governor would change his mind.  She
knew
some of the men out there, girding themselves for a brief struggle.  Some of them had disliked her - the policemen had kept a sharp eye on her for the first two months - but none of them deserved to die for nothing.

She winced as the radio buzzed.  “I have nine armoured men in my sights,” Sergeant Harkin said.  He was actually a retired soldier, someone who’d been demobbed two years after the war and secured a posting to Clarke for reasons that he’d never really shared with anyone else.  Lillian liked him more than she cared to admit.  “They’re advancing towards the first trench.”

“Engage at will,” the Governor ordered.

Lillian closed her eyes for a long moment as the first set of combat reports came in.  The defenders fired a handful of shots, then fell back to the next line of defences, forcing the Indians to waste time clearing trenches that were already abandoned.  A handful of Indian soldiers were caught in improvised traps - she felt a moment of vindictive glee as it became clear that a handful of intruders would never see India again - but it wasn't enough to do more than annoy the advancing soldiers.  They knew as well as she did that they had all the time in the world to clear the trenches. 

“Nine intruders down,” Sergeant Harkin reported.  “I ...”

His message cut off.  Lillian glanced at the sensors and cursed under her breath as she realised the enemy had hit his position with a missile.  The remaining defenders were pulling back, but they were rapidly running out of space.  It wouldn’t be long before the Indians were in a position to either storm the colony doors or merely blast their way through the prefabricated walls.  Either way, the colony couldn't hold out any longer.

The Governor evidently agreed.  “Contact the Indians,” he ordered.  “Now.”

Lillian swallowed as she tapped commands into her console.  The Indians hadn't even
tried
to open communications.  She couldn't help wondering if that meant the Indians had
no
interest in demanding and accepting surrender.  The remaining defenders were still trying, but their position had been hopeless from the start ...

“I have a link,” she reported.  The screen blinked to life, showing a dark-skinned man with a neatly-trimmed beard.  “Governor?”

The Governor cleared his throat.  “I am Governor Harry Brown, Governor of the Pegasus System.”

“I am General Anjeet Patel,” the Indian said.  He didn't seem inclined to beat around the bush.  “Your position is hopeless.”

“I understand,” the Governor said.  His voice was tightly-controlled, but Lillian could hear the hint of anger underlying his words.  “I wish to open talks ...”

“My terms are quite simple,” Patel said, cutting him off.  “You will order your remaining defenders to surrender and open the doors, allowing my men to occupy the colony.  You will make no attempt to destroy your computers, your life support infrastructure or anything else that may be required.  You may destroy classified files, but not anything relating to the colony and its personnel.”

He paused for a long moment.  “For the duration of the present emergency, Clarke III will be governed under Indian military law.  Your people - military and civilian - will have nothing to fear as long as they obey orders.  Prisoners will be treated in line with the standard Luna Conventions.”

Lillian nodded to herself, unable to keep herself from feeling relieved.  The Great Powers showed no mercy to insurgents, revolutionaries and terrorists, but the Luna Conventions applied to national troops who hadn't been caught breaking the laws of war.  It would have been insane for the Indians to act otherwise, yet the mere act of starting a war was insane when it would only weaken humanity.  Who knew
what
the Tadpoles would do?

“I understand,” the Governor said, stiffly.  “However, I am quite unable to acknowledge the permanent surrender of either the colony or the system itself.”

“That is understood,” Patel said.  “My men will advance to secure the colony.”

His image vanished from the display.  Lillian heard the Governor mutter a curse under his breath before keying his wristcom and issuing the surrender order.  She felt an unpleasant knot in her stomach as she watched through the cameras as the Indians closed in on the defenders, who had dropped their weapons and were standing with their hands in the air.  The Indians seemed to be trying to be reasonably civilised, but they were still careful to escort the prisoners - at gunpoint - into a tracked vehicle before opening the doors and entering the colony. 

“Purge the classified files,” the Governor ordered, quietly.