Armored Tears (13 page)

From
a couple of kilometers away, the sound of the big bullets cracking by overhead
was distinct from both the distant booming rattle of the smartguns firing and
from the snapping impacts of the bullets on the camp's walls.

Another
volley of missiles rose over the wall of the camp, this time tracking for where
A-squad had been sheltering. The impacts kicked up violent sprays of rocks and
dirt, but the A-squad framers were long gone. On the other hand, Bernie realized,
if the hostiles could get an observer to command-guide those missiles, they'd
be able to swat the evading frame infantry with ease.

"All
carriers converge your fire on the top of the camp wall," came the
captain's order.

Finally,
a sensible order, Bernie thought as she ran. Keep their heads down so they
couldn't see where the framers were going to ground.

The
distant booming crackle of the carrier's auto-smartguns rolled out and echoed
across the desert. From a few kilometers away, the bursts were scary accurate,
strings of rounds tracking right across the top of the camp walls, kicking up
showers of dust and debris.

Bernie
picked some cover, locked it in to her targeting system and transmitted it to
the display visors of the rest of her squad.

"Go
to ground, B-squad," she sent, and suited action to words.

She
was breathing hard; running full tilt through the desert was hard even when the
frame helped your legs and took all the weight of your weapons and armor.

The
carriers were still firing, pumping out burst after burst, bullets arcing
across the desert to slap into the top of the camp's wall. The wall was
wreathed in dust, but what could be seen of it was beginning to look like
something large had chewed on it.
           

Those
refugee fucks were going to be sorry they ever messed with her company, Bernie
thought. But where did they get those missiles?

"Captain,"
came a voice over the command push, which as a squad-leader, she could listen
in on, "I've got movement three klicks south on the rise..."

It
sounded to Bernie like one of the carrier systems operators; they ran the
carrier's auto-smartgun, helped maintain the frames and operated drones when
they had to; the jacks-of-all-trades of a framer company.

The
captain's voice came on the push. "Movement? Can you task a drone?"

"I
did, sir. It just went off line. Should I task another one?"

"Right,
do that. And while you're at it, get..."

Whatever
the captain was going to say was cut short as one of the distant frame carriers
exploded. Bernie snapped her head over in time to see the fireball climb into
the sky and dissipate, showering distant the ground with debris. She focused
her visor display on the remains of the carrier; it looked like it had been
split open the long way, reduced to a mass of twisted metal.

From
far to the south, a distant, rolling boom echoed like thunder.

A
few seconds later another carrier was smashed, flinging debris for a hundred
meters in all direction, before it too exploded. Another distant roll of
thunder followed its destruction.

"Oh,
my god!" someone called out on the command push. "That's three
gone!"

"All
carriers, deploy countermeasures!" came the captain's shout over the
command push. "Pop smoke and maneuver! Get back over the north
ridge!"

Bernie's
comm system pinged to tell her that a feed from one of the carrier's drones was
now available, and she pulled it up on her visor display.

"Oh,
shit!" Bernie breathed, as the picture coming from the drone became clear.
"Tanks."

16.

"I
don't know, Colonel," Major Feldman said. "Those reports sound
garbled and the whole notion is far-fetched. Some sort of refugee
uprising?"

Aaron
Feldman was a short man, stocky and solid-looking, with oddly mild-looking
brown eyes that seemed not to match his hard expression and his hairless, bullet-like
head, shaved to obviate the onset of pattern baldness. The colonel, standing
next to him, was notably taller than he was and he had never really made his
peace with looking up to her... in either sense.

The
early morning cool had gone as if had never been, and the battalion had
finished rousing itself from its overnight bivouac. Staying out in the
Highlands at night was a useful exercise, he admitted, but it would be good to
head back to the assembly area and then to stand down and go home. Except that
now it seemed there was something else to do.

"I
agree that it's far-fetched, Feldman," Tara said, "but let's look at
facts. First we lose contact with two Aerospace 'ghosts' and then our satellite
comm and data-cloud feeds go down. And now there's a garbled call for help on
an Infantry Corps push."

"That
doesn't prove..."

"Doesn't
prove anything," Tara agreed. "But I think something's going on.
Command isn't responding to our shortwave radio communications, but there's no
guarantee they're getting through to them; with the satellites not working,
Command's going to be having a pretty chaotic day. So we take a look."

"Our
orders were to escort the convoy and then head back to the staging area at
Baker's Station," Feldman said.

"I
do remember, thanks, Feldman," Tara quipped. "But this is weird, and
we're in position to take a look. So let's take a look."

"Very
well, Colonel. But I'd rather just take one platoon. If I take my whole
company, it'll take hours to get back into proper position. Hell, I'd rather
just take my tank and drive down there for a quick look, but I know you won't
allow it."

"Alright,
Feldman. One platoon, but get it done. Take a look, report back that nothing's
wrong, and then we can head home."

"Well,
Younger, what do you think's going on?" Tara asked, as the two of them
watched Feldman's tanks drive off.

"Don't
know, Legs. Not a clue."

"Seriously,
Captain. I want your take," Tara said.

"I
think you should have let me take one of my platoons instead of Feldman, is my
take."

"Oh,
God, Younger, not that again. Your whole company is so new the price tags are
still attached. Neither of your subordinate platoon-leaders has got any actual
command experience. Or combat experience, for that matter. If there's actually
something out there and I'm not just starting at shadows, then sending one them
out would be... let's see, how do I say this? A bad idea.

"And
if I sent you, who the fuck would run your company? Me? I've got my own company
to run... and my platoon... and my fucking battalion, in case you didn't
notice. Armored Corps has its fucking head up its ass, not giving battalion
commanders a command tank section and a separate platoon and company
leader."

"Yeah,
well, Legs, just get promoted again a couple of times and then you can change
the policy..."

"Right.
I'll get right on it, Younger. Seriously, I don't like this. It feels... edgy.
Like some bad shit is about to go down. Do you know what I mean?"

"Actually,
Legs, yeah. I do. Like there's a storm coming. 'Course, I've been watching you get
all antsy, so I might just be picking up on that. Aren't battalion commanders
supposed to be all calm and cool and shit?"

Tara
reached over and lightly punched the huge man in the shoulder.

"You
are so full of shit, Younger," she said, grinning. "You'd better get
back to your tank. I want all the tanks to do a little maneuvering. Get the
drivers to actually drive between the alternate firing positions we've set up.
If something's up..."

"Yeah,
Legs. If. I know. Gonna feel pretty silly, getting this ready, if it turns out
to be just some refugee gang-lord fight."

"Nah,
Younger. I'll just call it training. That's the awesome thing about being
battalion commander. Everything I say is automatically rendered wise and
correct through the magic of my exalted rank."

Younger
laughed as he slid off the turret of Tara's tank and started stomping towards
his own War-Hammer.

17.

The
six surviving frame carriers of the 9th Frame Infantry Company were going slow,
trying to keep their dust cloud down. There were twenty-one framers, a whole
platoon's worth, with no proper transport, which meant that there were framers
clinging to the roofs and sides of the six remaining vehicles.

The
trick was to make sure nobody masked one of the auto-smartgun turrets, Bernie
thought. Her carrier had been one of the ones destroyed, and now she was
finding out that clinging to the side of a frame carrier was even more
uncomfortable than being stuffed into one of the oversized-but-still-cramped
frame-trooper-sized seats that she usually rode in.

She
wasn't quite clear how the company, or what was left of it, had gotten away
from those tanks. Somehow, as the framers had rushed towards their surviving
carriers in the dust and smoke, the tanks had lost them... or let them go.

For
that matter, she had no idea whose tanks those were to begin with. It wasn't
even clear how many tanks there had been; the drones had shown only one with
any clarity, and even than one had been half-obscured by the dust its main gun
had kicked up.

Except
that it was pretty clear they weren't Defense Force tanks. Whatever was going
on, though, it was serious. The sat-comm system was down, and calls to Command
on the shortwave radio were being met with silence. Jamming, was the word going
around.

Despite
the loss of the three carriers, so far only six of the company's people had
been killed. Bernie had allowed herself a moment of relief when she found that
the captain's carrier, with the two Earther civilians aboard, had not been
among the ones to be hit. The thought came with a muted burst of bitter
resentment that her carrier had been hit. Neither the driver nor the systems
operator had been close to her, but they'd still been...

She
cut her thought short; there wasn't time for it. They were gone, the rest of
the company was in deep shit, and she had to keep herself focused. Other
thoughts could come later.

"All
drivers, stop," came Captain Wilson's voice over the command push,
"gunners, scan three-sixty. All squad leaders, dismount and meet me by my
carrier."

"OK,"
the captain said, speaking face to face with the two lieutenants and six
assorted sergeants who made up the leadership of 9th Company.

Bernie
noticed that the two civilians had dismounted as well, though they were hanging
well back from the clustered meeting of armored framers.

"Here's
what we've got," the captain went on. "We've lost our communications
with Command. Sat-Comm is down. I don't know if it's some sort of info-war
attack on the comm-network, or if the satellites have been taken out. Now,
since our only working radio booster was on Carrier-7, and that's gone, we
might not be getting through to Command. Or there might be jamming"

There
was a radio booster on the captain's carrier, too, Bernie knew, but a single
freak fragment from the destruction of one of the other carriers had hit it
with what seemed like a sniper's precision, smashing the external module
without even scratching the paint on the frame carrier's hull.

"We
definitely know that there's a major hostile incursion going on," the
captain went on. "Some sort of infiltration. So. Here's what we do. With
no sat-comm, our sat-nav and the Defense Force data-cloud is down too, but
we've got a clear line on the Isthmus Highlands and our nav systems can
triangulate, so we know where we are."

The
captain was pointing to a reference point on the map displayed on his planning
tablet, a bit of gear that officers had to carry, which sergeants didn't.
Bernie carried a spare magazine for her M39 in that pouch.

"Now,"
Captain Wilson went on, "we are just over eighty klicks from this little
automated sensors outpost, right here on this ridge. It's hard terrain, but the
carriers can still make it, and it's far from the road route. I figure, those
hostile tanks are going to be watching the road.
 

"If
we can make it to the outpost, there's a full communication setup there.
Satellite uplink, but also directional parabolics and a serious radio booster setup.
So even if there's some sort of jamming, we should be able to punch through.

"If
that doesn't work, I plan to keep moving till here," the captain's finger
tapped another point on his map screen, "to this Auxiliary Corps outpost
at Hamilton Station. There should be a squad of Auxiliary Corps people there,
and some transport too, as well as a parts depot. Maybe they've still got
communications with Command. Or maybe we need to warn them and pull them out
before those hostile tanks find them."

The
captain paused a second. To Bernie it seemed as if he wanted to see if anyone
had anything to add, but before Lieutenant Maynard could draw a breath to
speak, the captain started up again.

"From
there, we can try to fall back into the highlands, to Baker's Station. There's
an Armored Corps outpost there. Hopefully someone at one of these places will
know what's going on."
           

"We
got to keep it slow," said Chief-Sergeant Norton, the company's senior
NCO. He was probably the oldest man in the company, having refused promotion to
officer rank often enough to make it a running joke. "If we move too fast,
dust cloud... and then the tanks home in."

"Absolutely
correct," said the captain. "In fact, I plan to move slowly enough to
keep one platoon of framers out and running as a perimeter. That way, we get
some warning when we crest any high ground. And our route will stick to low
ground for the carriers as much as possible. I don't want to risk silhouetting
them on some miserable little sand hill. So, this is the first leg of the
route. My platoon will take perimeter duty till we hit this point. Then we
switch to 2nd Platoon, till here. And then 3rd Platoon till the outpost."

Riding
inside a frame carrier again was a bit of a relief, Bernie thought. Granted it
was cramped and dark, but it was a chance to rest and let the carrier's power
plant recharge her frame's power pack.

It
still wasn't comfortable. Wearing a frame gave you mobility, firepower and
protection, but it took away the ability to scratch most itches, which was, in
Bernie's opinion, actually the worst hardship of being a framer.

From
her seat in the carrier, she could see into the forward crew cab, where the two
reporters were sitting, huddled in some mix of shock and misery. She wanted to
tell them that it would be OK, but for one thing, she had no idea if it would
be OK. And for another, she was pretty sure that the forces shooting at her had
been UEN... and did that make the reporters part of the enemy? Bernie was
pretty sure that the German woman, Ulla, would have been delighted if UEN
forces had wiped her company out. Aran, though, seemed to have a more Australian
—or was it Indonesian?— attitude. He seemed to be more open minded,
unless that was a trick of some sort.
 

Fuck
it, she thought to herself. The Earthers would have to take care of themselves.
She had her squad to worry about, and that was enough.

***

"I'm...
I'm scared, Aran," Ulla whispered. "I wish I'd never agreed to come
with you. I wish you hadn't agreed to this. I wish we were both back on
Earth."

"Me
too, Ulla," Aran said. "But we're here, and we have to keep our wits
about us, or our chances will be worse than they already are. Right? Eyes and
ears open and brains working. That's the best bet for getting out of a sticky
situation like this."

"I'm
afraid of the Arcadians with us. What if they decide to take revenge on us...
for their people who got killed? I mean, were those UEN forces? I want to get
away from here," Ulla hissed.

"I
don't think the Arcadians are into reprisal killings, though," Aran said,
sounding thoughtful. "I think they'll try to keep us safe, until they can
get us out of here."

"If
the UEN is here, then we'd be safe if we can get to them," Ulla said.
"I don't see how you can be so sure about the Arcadians. They were going
to kill those refugees. They fired at the camp. Who knows how many people died
inside?"

"They
were being shot at, you noticed?"

"Sure,
but they didn't show any concern about non-combatants being killed. I doubt
they'd be any less willing to shoot us. Especially if it turns out the people
they're fighting are from the UEN."

Aran
was silent for a long while, as the carrier crawled forward. "I hope
you're wrong," he said, finally.