Starfist: Kingdom's Fury (34 page)

He looked at the large situation map. The speckles of the armored vehicles seemed to all be moving toward Haven.

"Get me an ID on that weapon," he ordered Commander Daana, the intelligence officer. By the look of the barrel, he suspected it was an acid shooter. If it was, Marine artillery and aircraft could do the attackers severe damage. But if it was a rail gun . . . The Haven defenses were thinly manned by two understrength Kingdomite infantry divisions that would be shattered by the three hundred or so small tanks headed toward them. He needed his infantry. But most of the platoons and squad were out of touch inside the Skink stronghold.

"Two, send recon and the scout-snipers in to get the infantry out, we need them here," he ordered Daana.

"Aye aye, sir," Daana answered. He passed the order to his comm men. A moment later he said, "Sir, I have an ID on those weapons. Acid shooters. The Skinks used those tanks in several attacks during the course of the original invasion.

According to the ambassador's records, they're pretty nimble." He looked at an image on a console. The vehicles didn't seem nimble in marsh. On the large situation map, speckles began blinking out as the
Grandar Bay's
lasers picked them off.

More flowed from underground. The small tanks started to join together in formations.

Another report came in from the
Grandar Bay
.

"An object, possibly a defensive missile, just launched from the Skink complex. It jumped into Beamspace before the Laser Gunnery Division could fix on it."

"That's impossible," Daana said. "Nothing can jump into Beamspace from inside a gravity well!"

"I know that," the
Grandar Bay
replied, "but all the signatures it kicked out said it was doing it anyway."

"Then it probably destroyed itself."

"We're hoping that up here. If it didn't, we don't even know in what direction to look for it." The
Grandar Bay's
comm officer sounded very nervous.

"Two," Sturgeon interjected, "the recordings recovered from Society 437 showed Skink shuttles moving in and out of Beamspace inside a gravity well. It might be impossible, but they do it anyway."

Before Daana could reply, the
Grandar Bay's
comm officer spoke again, this time with evident relief. "We picked it up again, it made a course adjustment. It's not a defensive missile, it's heading out-system!"

Sturgeon squeezed his eyes shut to block the sudden pain he felt. He remembered the message Ambassador Spears showed him from
Fundy's Tide
. Society 362, only three light-years away, almost positively had Skinks. That launch was probably a drone heading for Society 362, a request for reinforcements. Three light-years. Not quite twelve hours, standard, travel time in Beamspace—assuming the Skinks traveled in Beamspace at the same rate as human ships. Given the Skink ability to move in and out of Beamspace within a gravity well, the only question was how fast reinforcements could board ships. If they were already on board, it was conceivable that more Skinks could arrive in just over twenty-four hours, standard.

"Where's my infantry?" he growled.

The infantry was assembling by platoons and companies in six predetermined locations, one per company, within the Skink stronghold. Of the thirty-five units from the two FISTs—which ranged from reinforced platoon down to reinforced squads—that entered the massive cave and tunnel complex, only sixteen had contact with Skinks. Eleven had captured buzz saws, and seven of the eleven had figured out how to work them. The four that hadn't figured it out were quickly shown. Marines were always armed and deadly; now they were better armed and more deadly.

Company L assembled in a large chamber that had matting on the floor and a low dais at one end. A chair with a low seat, oddly elegant despite its lack of ornamentation, stood on the dais.

The two units of third platoon were jubilant at rejoining. They admired the buzz saw each had captured. Each group was only slightly disappointed that the other had figured out how the weapon worked, and neither was able to show off its superior skills.

"Listen up," Captain Conorado shouted. He had his helmet off so his men could see him. Everyone except the few who were assigned to watch the entrances to the chamber looked at the company commander.

"Don't think we've got this fight won yet," Conorado said sternly. "All we've done so far is clear a few entrances to this complex. You've seen the maps, so you have an idea how big it is. We've barely gotten inside. There's a lot more fighting ahead of us. Some Marines are going to die and some will be crippled before we're finished. I want as few of those dead or crippled Marines as possible to be from Company L."

He transmitted the current situation map to the platoon commanders and platoon sergeants. His voice lost its harsh edge and he continued. "Here's where we are and where we're going next. Show it to your people."

Throughout the chamber, Marines clustered around their squad leaders to study the maps they projected into the air.

Conorado checked the time. Lacking communications between companies, the operation was being coordinated by the clock.

"Rest up a bit," he said. "We're moving out in one-four minutes. Any questions?"

"Send more Skinks!" Corporal Dean shouted.

"Don't worry about it, Dean," Conorado said above the laughter. "We've got quite enough of them ahead of us."

The two Marines of a scout-sniper team, breathless from running, arrived less than two minutes before Conorado gave the order for Company L to move out.

"Company L!" he shouted. "New orders. We are withdrawing. The Skinks have launched an armor attack on Haven."

Armor. The word shot through the Marines like a jolt of electricity. Most of them had fought in the campaign on Diamunde, the first war in centuries in which heavy armor was used in combat. They shuddered when they remembered the monster vehicles that had been so hard to kill and had killed so many members of the company. That war had been fought by six FISTs and an entire army and was supported by navy Air. Even then, the outcome had been in doubt for weeks. Here, there were only two FISTs, no army backing them up, and no navy Air in support.

Armor! Christ on a crutch? It was more like Buddha's blue balls locked in Mohammed's pointed teeth!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Free from worry about rail guns, half of the Marine Raptors stopped firing Jerichos at the Skinks battling the Army of the Lord and took flight after the armor, which began massing as soon as it left the wetlands. The small tanks were nimble enough to avoid most of the point-target missiles the Raptors fired. The Marines quickly shifted back to Jerichos and found them very effective against the little armored vehicles.

Artillery, Marine and Kingdomite, began pounding the Skink armor as soon as it got in range. As imposing as they looked to men on foot, the Skink tanks' armor was thin, and so highly vulnerable to area-denial munitions. Between the Jerichos and the artillery, they died by the dozens. The survivors fled back for their underground homes, reaching the marshes and swamps, only to encounter the Marine infantry.

The captured buzz saws simply shredded the tanks. The guns of blaster platoons and the bigger guns of the assault platoons easily burned through the thin armor with long bursts and vaporized the crews. Blastermen who evaded detection found that a fire team that concentrated its three blasters' fire had enough power to burn through the thin armor at the backs of the tanks. Almost none of the tanks of the Skink counterattack made it back underground.

"Now I know why they didn't use their armor against us earlier," Brigadier Sturgeon said. He wondered what other surprises the Skinks had in store. That futile attack had to have been a diversion. But a diversion for what?

He ordered the infantry to return to Haven. He made sure Commodore Borland understood the situation the same way he did, then composed messages to dispatch to the Combined Chiefs, Commandant Tokis, and Assistant Commandant Aguinaldo to travel in the same drone Borland was using to send messages to the Combined Chiefs, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Minister of War.

The staffs of Marine Expeditionary Forces, Kingdom, and the two FISTs worked on defense plans. They assumed the worst—that Skink reinforcements superior in number to the original Skink invasion force were on their way.

All Raptors returned to base to preserve the remaining Jerichos. The Hoppers, with less effective area weapons, replaced the Raptors in support of the Army of the Lord on the western fringes of the Skink stronghold. Marine artillery was moved into position and added its support. It wasn't long before the Skink resistance completely collapsed. Sturgeon ordered Archbishop General Lambsblood to return his divisions to Haven.

Lambsblood was furious. He wanted to pursue the demons into their Hades and expel them back to the hell they had come from. Unwillingly and protesting, he complied with Sturgeon's orders. Twelve hours after the collapse of the Skinks'

western resistance, the badly battered divisions that had participated in that assault were integrated into the Haven defenses, which looked a great deal different from how they had earlier.

Twenty-four hours and thirty-seven minutes after the Skink drone launched, a starship the size of a Crowe-class Amphibious Battle Cruiser popped out of Beamspace into orbit within visual range of the fast frigate
CNSS Admiral J. P.

Jones
. The
J. P. Jones
was so surprised by a starship entering Space-3 that deep in a gravity well, it didn't immediately take defensive action. By the time it did it was too late—missiles fired by the Skink starship had already been fired and were closing on the
J. P. Jones
. The
J. P. Jones
got off one shot from its laser battery before the incoming missiles destroyed it. The debris cloud left by the fast frigate began its slow expansion.

The
Grandar Bay
, in orbit on the opposite side of Kingdom, was shocked by the abrupt arrival of the Skink starship in orbit and the destruction of the
J. P. Jones
.

Battle stations were called immediately and the
Grandar Bay
prepaired to defend itself. But the strange starship didn't attack. It dropped shuttles that popped in and out of Beamspace on their way around the globe to the Skink stronghold.

The Marines gritted their teeth. Those so inclined prayed to whatever gods they believed in. They did whatever they could to prepare themselves for a fight they expected would be fiercer than any they'd ever been in before.

The Soldiers of the Lord weren't told about the arrival of the Skink starship and the impossible descent of the shuttles. Lambsblood was too afraid of panic in the ranks and mass desertions.

The first shuttles touched down in the wetlands. On the
Grandar Bay
, the Laser Gunnery Division locked on targets and fired.

"What do you mean, missed?" demanded the gunnery officer.

"The targets are still there," the senior chief petty officer who was the gunnery chief said. "Must be a glitch in the aiming program."

The gunnery officer checked the visual, radar, and emissions displays. The lasers had fired at an array of six shiny shuttles on the ground. The six shuttles were still there, apparently intact and unharmed.

"Run diagnostics on the computer and debug the program," the gunnery officer ordered. "And while you're at it, fire another salvo at those shuttles."

"Aye aye," the chief said.

The gunnery officer watched the displays as the lasers fired the salvo. He nodded to himself. The cloud of mist that rose from the ground made it obvious that the lasers hadn't missed. Then he watched in utter astonishment as five shuttles rose above the mist and blinked into Beamspace. When the mist cleared, he saw one shuttle still sitting there. He adjusted his visual display to show the shuttle in the highest resolution possible. The resolution wasn't fine enough for him to be certain, but it appeared that the shuttle's ramp was down and that there was significant charring around the open ramp.

"Missed again, sir," the gunnery chief said.

"Show me." His display flicked to another view, and he saw six shuttles rise and blink out. He adjusted the resolution and could just make out evidence of laser damage in the bit of marsh he looked at. He located another half-dozen shuttles and watched while tiny dots representing Skinks boiled out of the water and onto the shuttles. The shuttles rose into the air and blinked out.

"They aren't bringing in reinforcements!" he exclaimed. "They're pulling out. Get me the bridge. Watch the targets. Try to shoot when their ramps are down."

While the Laser Gunnery Division was struggling to kill the Skink shuttles,
Grandar Bay's
Orbital Missile Division struggled to kill the Skink starship. But every time the starship launched a flight of shuttles, it blinked into Beamspace, only to return at a different place to recover a flight of shuttles. Each time it returned to orbit around Kingdom, it launched two salvos of missiles of its own. One salvo, aimed at the string-of-pearls, knocked out satellite after satellite. The other went at the
Grandar Bay
, which couldn't jump into Beamspace to get out of the way. The Laser Gunnery Division was diverted from its attacks on the shuttles to defensive fire against the Skink orbital missiles. None of the Skink missiles got through the laser fire.

The debris from the destruction of the Skink missiles was another matter. Each destroyed missile burst into a cloud of fragments. Some of the debris plunged into lower orbits and burned up in Kingdom's atmosphere. Other bits lost part of their velocity, and their orbits decayed until they also burned up in the atmosphere.

Detonating warheads imparted enough velocity to some fragments to send them upward at escape velocity, and they disappeared into interplanetary space. But there were chunks that continued on their original trajectories and peppered the hull of the
Grandar Bay
.