MERCS: Crimson Worlds Successors (6 page)

Chapter 5

“How did the Lysandrians manage to hire the Gold Spears?”  Darius Cain sat at the small table, staring across at Erik Teller.  “Tomlinson did a full financial analysis.  There is no way Lysandria could have put together the Spears’ price…even assuming the most extreme range of contingencies.  We’d allowed a 10% probability they would be able to retain one of the lesser companies, but none at all that they could afford another Great Company.”

Teller was staring across the table at his friend.  Darius was usually as cool as they came, but he could see the leader of the Eagles was agitated.  Teller understood—he felt it too.  The Eagles had faced the Spears before, three times, in fact.  Each contest had been a victory for Cain’s soldiers, as every battle the undefeated Eagles had fought had been.  Most companies were quick to surrender to the Eagles.  Battles to the bitter end were unprofitable, and a company that fought to utter destruction was out of business.  But the Spears wanted the Eagles’ perch; they wanted to stand atop the heap as the undisputed best of the Companies.  And they knew that could never happen, not when their hated rivals were still in the way.

The rivalry had grown over time until it had become extremely bitter.  When the two forces had last met, Cain warned the Spears—the next time they faced each other there would be no surrender, no quarter.  The fight would be to the death.  If the Black Eagles found the Gold Spears once again arrayed against them on the battlefield, Cain had sworn it would be the last time.  Erik Teller knew his commander and oldest comrade never made a threat he wasn’t willing to carry out.  He wondered if the senior officers of the Spears understood that.

“I don’t know, Darius.  It doesn’t make sense to me either.  The Lysandrian government was almost bankrupt even without the prospect of war.  I can’t conceive of any way they could have raised such a sum. Unless they had help.”

“Help?” Cain replied.  “You mean another planet?  Maybe someone with designs on the Albemarlians?”  His face twisted into a frustrated grimace.  “No, that doesn’t make sense either.  It really doesn’t matter to the Albemarlians if we get banged up in the fight.  They paid us to subjugate the defenders.  The only way they come out behind is if we lose outright.”  Teller knew Cain tried to avoid arrogance at all costs, but he found it difficult to imagine the Eagles actually losing the upcoming fight, and he suspected Cain felt the same way.

“Could it be someone targeting us?  Trying to interfere with our contracts?  Or to wear us down?”  Teller had just been thinking out loud, but now he paused and looked right at Cain.  “That has to be it.  Somebody
is
after us, Darius.  They want to inflict heavy losses, wear us down.  There’s nothing else that makes sense.”

“But who?”  Cain was nodding.  “I agree with your thinking, but I can’t come up with a guess at who.   I wouldn’t put it past that piece of shit Ling to convince himself his Spears could take us, especially with someone encouraging him, but I don’t see anybody else buying into that.  We might get shot up pretty badly down there, but we will win…and by the time we leave, no one will even be sure the Gold Spears ever existed.”  There was venom in Cain’s voice.  Any doubts Teller might have had about Darius following through on his earlier threats evaporated instantly.

“I suggest we revisit the assault plan, at least.  We’re going to be facing a much stronger defense than we’d expected.”

“Agreed.  Let’s move Cyn Kuragina’s regiment into the vanguard.”  Kuragina was a refugee who’d fled from the colony world of Vostok, one step ahead of the law.  Neither Cain nor Teller knew what she had done, and neither cared.  Black Eagles were born again when they took the company’s oath of service, their prior sins forgotten and forgiven.  Such absolution came at a price, however, and Eagles were held to an onerous standard of conduct and duty.  They were sworn to serve their brethren, and any who failed in that sacred trust could expect to deal with Darius Cain at his merciless worst.  Every Eagle knew their commander would run into the middle of enemy fire to retrieve a wounded private, but they were just as certain he would repay treachery with a cold and merciless justice.

“White Regiment first.  Got it.”  Teller agreed with the decision.  Cyn Kuragina was an odd duck, a woman who looked and acted like she’d been raised as a diplomat’s daughter but who took to soldiering with a gritty vengeance.  She was tough as nails and as strong a tactician as the Eagles had, besides Cain and Teller.

“The Teams will go down with her people.  I want the area scouted immediately, and I want snipers in place as soon as possible.  The Spears’ officers are all strutting peacocks just like Ling.  We should be able to put half of them down in the first few hours.”  Like all serious military units, the Gold Spears issued the same armor to their officers and key personnel.  But their commander, General Ling, was an arrogant man, and his leadership style permeated his unit.  And Darius Cain had trained his Special Action Teams to search for any indication a target was an officer – posture, positioning, behavior.  His elite snipers were utterly without peers in Occupied Space, and he was confident they would wreak havoc on the Spears’ command structure.

“Falstaff next?” Teller asked.  Evander Falstaff’s commanded the Eagles’ senior unit, the Black Regiment.  After the Teams, Falstaff’s people were the most experienced veterans, and they served almost as a guard unit.

“Yes, right behind Kuragina.”  Cain’s voice was stern.  “And I do mean
right
behind, Erik.  If we mess around with the Spears, they can hurt us.  And I don’t want Kuragina’s people down their alone a second longer than necessary.”

“Understood.  I’ll run the launch sequences myself.”

“Good.” Cain paused for an instant.  “Let’s land Cornin’s Red Regiment next and keep Vandeveer’s Blues in orbital reserve.  But I want them ready to land immediately if we need them.”

“Got it, Erik.  Still good for launch at 0800?”  The Eagles ships ran on Earth time, just as the fleets of the Superpowers had.  Earth was a radioactive wreck whose survivors clawed out a miserable existence in the shattered ruins, but she was still man’s original home, and her clock and calendar were still in use across much of human space.

“Yes.”  He stood stone still as his executive officer nodded.  “And I’m going in with Kuragina.”

Teller’s eyes snapped back to Cain’s and his mouth opened to argue.  But he got one good look at his commander’s face, and he held his tongue.  He’d known Darius Cain most of his life, and he knew that expression.  He knew it far too well.

*        *        *        *        *

Cain walked down the corridor of his flagship toward his quarters.  The landing was commencing in three hours, and if his Eagles were going to have their final showdown with the Gold Spears, he was damned sure going down with the first wave.  He’d originally expected the campaign against Lysandria to be relatively quick and easy, but now he knew it was going to be a hard fight.  He had most of his strength with him—about 6,000 ground troops in total—and preliminary scanning reports suggested the Spears had roughly the same.  Of course, his people were invading, and their enemies were down there, dug in and waiting.

He was stressed, worried about the campaign, and his anger toward his rivals was gnawing at him.  But there was something else too, something he couldn’t put out of his mind.  Tom Sparks had researched the debris he’d brought back from Karelia, and he’d confirmed the few bits and pieces came from state of the art fighting suits, as good or nearly so as the Mark VIII units his people wore.  But there was no indication of who had fielded units so equipped or why they had ambushed a party of his troopers.  He’d reluctantly accepted the likelihood that his missing people were dead, though it had still stabbed at him to leave Karelia without being sure.  He’d hoped Sparks would be able to ID the source of the equipment, but the brilliant scientist had been stumped.

Now he was facing another anomaly, something else that didn’t make sense, and on the very next campaign.  Cain always researched his opponents thoroughly, and he didn’t make mistakes.  If it had been remotely feasible, possible even, for the Lysandrians to hire a company as costly as the Spears, he would have known it.  Events were never entirely predictable, but this was the second consecutive campaign that had him analyzing bizarre occurrences.  Darius Cain didn’t believe in much, and certainly not coincidences.  Something was going on.  He had no idea what it was, not even a starting point.  But he knew there was some kind of trouble coming.

“Erik told me you were going down with the first wave?”  The familiar voice came from behind.  He turned and saw Ana Bazarov walking up behind him.  He usually had a smile for her, but he was too troubled this time, and he just nodded.  “Yes,” he replied simply.  Cain had become quite fond of the refugee since he’d saved her from a brutal assault on Karelia.  Even he didn’t understand the effect she had on him, but the thought of seeing her hurt—or left behind on a planet destined for servitude and economic depression—was something he’d found upsetting, and he’d taken her with him when the Eagles departed.

She’d been hostile to him at first, feeling she’d merely traded one assailant for another.  But when it became apparent he had no intention of harming her or her sister, she began to warm up to him, slowly at first.  Now there was real warmth in her voice, and worry as she thought of him leading his vanguard into the teeth of heavy resistance.  The news that the Gold Spears were waiting down on the surface had spread rapidly through the fleet.

“Why?” she asked softly, reaching out and putting her hand on his arm.  “You don’t usually land with the first wave, do you?”

He felt an urge to pull away from her, but it vanished quickly, replaced by the calm feeling she usually gave him.  He resisted his initial impulse to snap back at her.  He was tense, and his mind was deep in thought, trying to understand what was going on.  Darius Cain had a paranoia as strong as his father’s.  He was sure the suspicion he felt was warranted, but his efforts to develop a hypothesis had so far produced only frustration.  He was fond of Ana, perhaps even infatuated, but he didn’t have time for her now.

“I land at whatever point I feel is best for the operation.  When I drop later, it is because it is tactically advisable to direct early operations from the fleet.  Physical safety is not a concern in the decision.  I am prepared to go anywhere I send my soldiers.”

“Shouldn’t you make sure your soldiers have secured the area before you land?  I’m not military expert, but…”

“No,” he said, more harshly than he’d intended, “you are not a military expert.”  He paused, softening his tone before he continued.  “Look, Ana…”  He forced a smile.  “…I appreciate your concern, but you have to trust me on this.  War is my business.  And I’m good at it.  Very good.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she just nodded and looked up at him with watery eyes.  “Be careful, Darius.”  Her voice was soft, affectionate.  “Please.”

“I am always careful, Ana.”  It was the first lie he’d ever told her.

*        *        *        *        *

“I want your people to form a large perimeter and dig in as soon as we land.  I wouldn’t put it past Ling to send his people in to try to pinch out our LZ as soon as we hit ground.”

“Yes, sir.”  Cyn Kuragina stood next to Cain, fully armored except for her retracted helmet.  She’d had long blonde hair when she’d first arrived to join the Eagles, but she’d been shaving her head for years now.  She stared back at Cain with piercing ice blue eyes.  Kuragina was a very attractive woman, but she’d given herself over completely to the martial life.  Cain pitied the man who tried to pick her up when she was on leave.  He’d be lucky to keep his teeth.  Kuragina loved men, at least the ones who made up 80% of her regiment, but for most other purposes, she preferred women.

“The Teams are going in on the lead wave too, so make sure your people know they’re there.  I don’t want them seeing bogies when it’s just our scouts and snipers.”  Nothing made Cain as crazy as friendly fire incidents.  He mourned every one of his soldiers lost, but the ones caught in the crossfire cut the deepest.  The Eagles all had friend or foe transponders, but jamming and other battlefield confusion sometimes overrode precautions.  No matter how good a unit was, no matter how well trained and equipped, when the shit got really nasty, troops got hit by their comrades.

“Understood, sir.”  She paused, staring at him with those glacial eyes.  “And prisoners, sir?  Is it true we’re not to accept any surrenders?”

Cain returned her stare, and his eyes were no less frozen than hers.  “There is to be no quarter given to the Gold Spears, Colonel.  They have had their warning, and they have chosen to disregard it.”  His voice was like ice.  “You may accept the surrender of local forces, but only if you are confident you can do so without compromising the security of your command.”

“Understood, sir.”  She snapped to rigid attention.

“Very well, Colonel Kuragina…you may see to your regiment’s dispositions.”

She saluted crisply and turned on her heel, a difficult maneuver in armor.  Cain watched her walk briskly toward the launch bay.  He’d always liked Kuragina.  When he’d first seen her, straggling in with a shipload of new recruits, he’d bet himself she would wash out in less than a week.  She was the shortest of her trainee class by a good quarter of a meter, and half the men outweighed her by 50 kilos.  But she was the toughest of them all, and she finished at the top of the class.  She’d risen through the ranks faster than anyone else in the history of the Eagles, and she was the only regimental commander who had started as a trainee instead of coming to the unit with previous combat experience.  He still remembered watching her kick the living shit out of a male trainee almost twice her size.  She’d walked away almost without a scratch, and her opponent ended up in the infirmary.