The Prisoner of Eldaron: Crimson Worlds Successors II (36 page)

Still, despite his concern for the trap he knew was waiting for them, that wasn’t what was truly troubling him. He had faith in the Black Eagles, and he knew they could face any fight that came their way. But Darius was out there somewhere, deep behind enemy lines with only 200 men and women. The cream of the Eagles were cut off and driving their way deeper into the heart of the enemy’s stronghold.

I hope. For all I know they could have been wiped out already
.

He was struck by the oddness of his thought, that his oldest friend could already be dead, lying in some ditch outside the Eldari Citadel, and he wouldn’t know.
No
, he thought angrily, pushing back the doubts.
Darius is the best warrior I’ve ever seen. He’s a survivor
.

He believed it, mostly at least. But the hint of doubt hung over him, like a shadowy darkness. He struggled to put it out of his mind…he had duty now. He had to take care of the Eagles until Darius returned. But he couldn’t quite banish the concerns, the guilt he felt at not having gone with his friend…even though he knew that hadn’t been an option. Somebody had to lead the Eagles…and make damned sure whatever trap was waiting out there didn’t get the better of them.

That’s all you can do for Darius now, you damned fool. So get your head out of your ass and do it!

He glanced at his display. Thirty seconds to landing.

Back in the shit again…as deep as we’ve ever been…

*  *  *  *  *

“Let’s go…get that gear up to the front.” Matias Davidoff was clad in full powered armor, a luxury few of his soldiers enjoyed. Even a planet as wealthy as Eldaron was limited in the number of powered infantry units it could support…and half of those had been caught out in the EMT blasts, where their shielding proved inadequate to prevent their circuitry from being fried. So, instead of having over a thousand armored infantry in the line, he had less than 200…and 800 elite soldiers, trained in powered operations were now wearing fatigues and whatever scraps of hyperkev or other partial armor they’d managed to scrounge up and sharing a few boxes of assault rifles that had been stored in a secure location.

Even rifles and other equipment had been devastated by the Eagle’s surprise attack, the processors and circuitry that made the sophisticated guns work burnt out and useless. Davidoff didn’t care for the idea of sending his men to the front in pairs, with instructions for the second to grab the rifle after the first had been killed, but he hadn’t had any choice, not at first at least. But now he was finally getting a few weapons deliveries from the Citadel. He knew there were thousands of guns stored in the great fortress, along with grenades and ammunition. Most of it was old, ordnance that had been replaced with newer equipment but never discarded, but none of that mattered now. A ten year old gun was a hell of a lot better than no gun at all.

He looked over and saw that the soldiers delivering the weapons were hesitating. They were Citadel guards, not his own troops, and his authority over them was questionable. Most of the men assigned to the Citadel got there through some sort of patronage or connections, and it was clear the soldiers on the trucks had no desire to see the front lines up close. And Davidoff was far from sure they’d follow his orders to do so.

“Sergeant Patrillo,” he roared. His helmet was fully retracted, and he shouted across the blasted field.

“Sir!” Patrillo was a grizzled non-com, a career Eldari soldier whose service dated back further than the Tyrant’s rule. He ran over and snapped to attention in front of Davidoff.

“Sergeant, assemble a platoon and
escort
these gentlemen to the front line units. I want you to see to the distribution of these weapons personally.”

“Yes, General.”

“You have authorization to take any actions you deem necessary to ensure that these trucks get to the front. Do you understand me?” He spoke loudly enough for the cluster of men standing around the trucks to hear him.

“Yes, General. I understand.” Patrillo’s voice left no doubt in anyone’s mind he fully understood what Davidoff meant by
any actions
. He turned and raced over to the trucks, shouting out commands to the stunned drivers.

Davidoff stood and watched the non-com for a minute, turning away once he assured himself the Citadel guards were obeying. He turned toward a crew working off to his left, setting up a medium-sized dish. The equipment was from the Citadel, just like the assault rifles, more outdated stuff that had been stored instead of trashed. But once it was set up—and the hundred portable units he had were distributed to key units—the dish would give him at least some limited communications. It would be far from perfect, but enormously better than nothing, which was what he had now.

The battle wasn’t going well. Indeed, it had been a debacle. Facing troops like the Black Eagles required organized and well-equipped veterans, but his men were in total disarray, most of them without communications, many even without functioning weapons. He had hoped to hit the LZs quickly and hard, to try to keep the Eagles off balance. But those legendary warriors poured out of their craft and snapped almost immediately into formation. Then they turned toward the masses of Eldari soldiers circling their landing craft and fell on them with an almost unimaginable ferocity. There were wounded streaming back all across the front, and without effective com, Davidoff could only imagine how many more of his men were dead or dying along the battlelines.

He was pouring reserves forward as quickly as he got them, but so far nothing had even slowed the momentum of the Black Eagles. The new arrivals were generally better-armed, many units having re-equipped from the supplies trickling out of the Citadel. Still, the Eagles were sweeping them aside as quickly as he sent them forward. He figured he had numerical superiority of at least five to one, but it wasn’t going to matter, not unless he could get his troops rallied and reordered.

He looked over the convoy, his eyes catching the nervous look in the drivers’ eyes. He knew they were trying to figure a way to just drop their deliveries here and dash back to the Citadel. No doubt they would have already, but Davidoff was radiating an aura of barely controlled fury…and Patrillo had managed to communicate without a spoken word that he was perfectly willing to put a bullet in each of their heads.

Davidoff shook his head.

This is why we have such trouble facing an enemy like the Eagles. They have discipline, certainly, but they fight because they are fighters, because they have pride and dedication. They will stay in the battle if their officers are killed, continue the struggle even as their ammunition dwindles to nothing. How do we fight that? With conscripted soldiers and corrupt officers? What do my men fight for? Eldaron? Or the Tyrant? Are they one and the same, as we all must believe? Is this war truly for our planet, our families? Or do we merely served some scheme of the Tyrant, some play he is making for even greater power?

The Eagles have no such questions. They fight for themselves, and for their comrades. And they have Darius Cain at their head, not a man who seized power over the bodies of his betrayed allies. How can we hope to beat them?

Davidoff shook his head, as if the motion would banish his dangerous thoughts. It was not his place to question such things, only to do what he could with the resources at his disposal. He had numbers…and that was all he had. He had to find a way to use that advantage, or the Eagles would run right over his army. Then he would die, either on the field…or at the hands of an enraged Tyrant.

*  *  *  *  *

The Eagles were professionals who had fought most of their wars as dispassionately as men and women can endure battle. But this one was different. The steely nerves and cool execution were still there, but the Eagles carried something else with them on this campaign, something fiery and uncontrollable. It was anger, pure rage. Erik Cain was a legend, not only to the Marine Corps, but to honorable fighters everywhere. And he was the father of the Eagles’ beloved leader. The very thought that the Eldari had kept Cain a prisoner for so many years filled the Eagles with indignant rage. Their battles had always been business, professional endeavors treated as such. But this one was personal.

Jordyn Calfort was along the front line of the Eagles’ rapid advance. Her platoon had been one of the first to hit ground, and now they were with the forward line, heading toward the enemy Citadel. The fortress was still almost forty klicks away, nothing more than a shadowy mass off in the distance. Its weapons were engaged, but without its satellite tracking systems it was firing randomly. She’d had one casualty, a KIA, from the bombardment, but mostly the enemy’s long range fire was a nuisance and not a real danger.

“Lieutenant Calfort, the enemy are trying to form a defensive line two klicks ahead. We’re attacking in three minutes.” Captain Tonn’s voice was high-pitched, very feminine-sounding. But that fooled no one who knew the veteran officer. Priya Tonn had made nine combat drops as a Black Eagle, and the diminutive company commander had racked up an astonishing number of kills, while also distinguishing herself, first leading a platoon, and now a company.

“Understood, Captain. My people are ready to go.”
They’ve been ready since we hit ground
…

No one seemed to know for certain, but it was the army’s worst kept secret that General Cain had led the Teams to infiltrate the enemy Citadel. Every Black Eagle knew the only way to help the General was to take that massive fortress and hook up with his trapped force…whatever it took.

The Eldari had fallen back all morning, but now they were finally making a stand. They’d picked a good position, a high ridge slicing across the open plain, offering sweeping coverage of every potential approach. It was a first-class killing ground, just the kind of spot Calfort would have chosen to mount a strong defense if her people had been under attack. In most situations, it would be a difficult place to assault, one that offered few alternatives to a brutal frontal approach…exactly the type of situation that significantly negated the Eagles’ operational advantages and compelled them to accept heavy losses. But the Eldari forces were still severely disordered, their weapons and communications systems not yet recovered from the effects of the Eagles’ disruptive attacks earlier in the campaign.

Normally, Calfort would have hoped for orders to go around, to put up a skirmish line facing the enemy and execute a flanking maneuver. But the enemy’s numerical superiority made an outflanking move almost impossible. Besides, there were advantages to keeping up the continuous pressure, squeezing every drop of benefit from the enemy’s disorder. She knew the Eldari were shaken, that a hard attack now was the right move. But there wasn’t so much as a tree on that open plain…

“Lieutenant Calfort…” It was Tonn again. “Commence your attack!”

“Yes, Captain,” she said. Then she toggled the platoon-wide com. “Alright…let’s move. I want everybody across that plain as quickly as possible. Keep firing all the way…I want their heads down. And we get across as fast as we can. No stopping for anything.”

She took a deep breath and hopped up over the small hillside in front of her. “Attack!”

*  *  *  *  *

The trio of fighters streaked through the dawn sky, leaving long white trails as they ripped over the city at almost four times the speed of sound. The birds had already fired their missiles, and now they were flying low, blasting what looked like a freight monorail line with their autocannons. They’d left a long line of blasted concrete pylons behind them, along with the smoking wreckage of one train unfortunate enough to have been traversing the line at the wrong moment.

Kevin Darryk banked his craft to the right, angling for the meandering river that snaked past Eldaron’s second-largest city. Nordberg was a manufacturing center, the place the Tyrant had centered his heavy industry and basic materials production—all the dirty and polluting factories he hadn’t wanted marring his magnificent capital.

“That’s enough on the rail line. It’ll take them long enough to replace a kilometer of tracks. I want to take out those bridges before we head back to rearm.”

One glance at the display told him his wingmen were following him, their formation tight, as close to perfect as he’d ever seen. There had been no fighting in space to speak of on this campaign, but he was glad his fighter wing was earning its pay. Everyone knew the Eagles had been baited to attack Eldaron, and while just what was waiting for them was still a mystery, Darius Cain’s warriors believed they could handle anything that came at them. Still, confidence wasn’t the same thing as arrogance, and the Eagles’ battle plan had left no contingency unaddressed.

It was clear the war on Eldaron would be won or lost around the capital, so that is where the Eagles landed. The invasion was a surgical strike, with everything landing right around Eldaron City…where Cain had expected the bulk of the defenders to be deployed. The plan mostly ignored the planet’s other cities, but not entirely. Darryk and his squadrons of fighter-bombers had been charged with attacking airports, rail lines, roadways…any transport assets that could be used to rush reserves and supplies to the capital. Normally, a campaign like that would be costly, forcing the fighters to fly close to the ground-based defenses. But most of those were still down, and the few that were operational lacked effective targeting data. The Eagles’ squadrons had been running constant sorties all night, and they’d only lost one bird—and that had been a lucky shot.

Darryk angled his fighter down, diving at the first of a series of bridges spanning the two-kilometer wide river. There were four of them in total, connecting Nordberg with the rail lines and highways that led toward the capital, just over a thousand klicks to the west. Cutting them all would cripple the flow of troops and materials to the front lines.

His eyes glanced at the ammunition readouts.
Hmmm, lower than I’d like.