War Against the White Knights (26 page)

Now this is why a good Tallerman distrusts speech
, thought Nolog-Ndacu, although years of serving Wing Commander Dock meant his strange ways were just about intelligible. Nolog-Ndacu sent a volley of LB-37 LONAR ballistic missiles toward the cloud of enemy missiles heading their way from East. The
little buggers
as Docker called them, could detect even stealthed missiles and were near-impossible to evade, but were big. Each Valiant only carried one. The Wing Commander was to take three fighter squadrons – dolly birds, after the preening of the pilots – to counter the threat assessed by the observation teams in orbit. The Scimitars flown by the fighter squadrons were outnumbered, but with the Legion’s complete orbital superiority they should be able to see off this enemy threat.

Nolog-Ndacu’s rear eye blinked, a natural threat alert that temporarily blinded his front vision and gave the sensation of being doused in icy water. He was swiveling his head around to face this threat from the rear when the Valiant lurched, and then started to fall out of the sky.

“We are blind,” he reported to Oen-Sec, “EMP fried our sensors. Deploying reserves.” The Valiant juddered violently, its engine whining as Oen-Sec applied maximum thrust. They were probably about to die, but Nolog-Ndacu felt perfectly at peace as he waited for the reserve sensor array to come online. Like any good Tallerman, Nolog-Ndacu was calmest when he faced mortal peril; it was only as he awaited the next, inevitable, existential crisis that he displayed an unusual aptitude for worry.

By the time Nolog-Ndacu’s tac-sphere had returned for duty, Oen-Sec had wrestled the Valiant back under control. With his demise no longer quite so imminent, Nolog-Ndacu felt the tingle in his legs which was the closest a Tallerman ever came to blind panic. “The shockwave came from a fusion reaction starting up,” he told the pilot, simultaneously trying to remember his training about the lethality of radiation. “It’s not the enemy, the scour-copters did this.”

“The squadron leader was wrong, then. The atmosphere
is
on fire.”

“Negative, Flight-Sergeant. The
late
squadron leader was technically correct. The air isn’t burning, it’s
fusing
. Elements in the Flek are fusing, and that’s releasing enough energy to then fuse the nitrogen that is the main atmospheric constituent. It’s a chain reaction, slowly building.”

“… arses out of that hellhole, and climb to max altitude.”
Comms are back online
, noted Nolog-Ndacu. “I say again. Docker to all call signs. Arses out and climb high.”

“Roger that,” Oen-Sec said, adding over the internal comms: “For once, the Wing Commander’s words make perfect sense.”

Xin watched stoically as her Shock Wings withdrew, defeated not by the enemy but by a failure to understand the battlefield. Just what was this Flek? Nuclear fires burned in pockets scattered deep within the undergrowth of trimmings cut from the top of the world tree. The air was dissipating the heat sufficiently to prevent the fires from spreading more widely. Not yet… But maybe with a little encouragement…

Every instinct told her to exploit this unexpected development, and she had already raised several options with her staff, but Indiya had ordered Xin to wait until the senior Legion commanders had met.

A comm signal pinged. It was Indiya with the other army group commanders in tow. At least it hadn’t been a long wait.

“What effect do these nuclear fires have on your operation, Lieutenant-General Lee?” Indiya asked.

“Even my Assault Marines can’t advance through the inside of a fusion reaction. It will cause delays, and we will have to switch to alternate bridge heads down into the main habitat, but I don’t expect as much from the defenders either. Now we know how to set the Flek alight, let’s do a proper job. I can set my scour copters to cleanse the top of the Australia habitat with nuclear fire.”

“My operation relies upon a combined effort,” protested Lieutenant-General Mountain Root, the commander of Army Group Deep Strike. “My forces can keep Australia isolated, prevent reinforcements getting through for four hours. But I cannot hold off the rest of the world forever. I need Army Group Sky Strike to open up the habitat so that General Aelingir can deliver the knockout blow. The enemy’s outer defenses are smashed anyway. Let’s proceed without further delay.”

“By now, your soldiers are deep underground or underwater,” said Xin, recognizing that she was trembling with excitement even if the combat drugs meant she couldn’t feel the emotion.

“They are,” replied Mountain Root. “What of it?”

“We can set the atmosphere ablaze,” said Xin. “My weapon techs give me an 85 percent chance that with a sustained effort we can set off a chain reaction. Once it sets off, we will have just enough time to get away before it spreads uncontrollably. Your forces will be safe, Mountain Root, but the air would have gone, and the White Knight homeworld will be dead forever.”

“That’s hubris talking,” snapped Indiya, “or combat drugs are clouding your judgement. Everyone in the Human Legion of whatever race is bound by a legal agreement to be a vassal servant of the White Knights. Earth is bound by the Vancouver Accords, and they bind you and me, Lieutenant-General Lee. You know the consequence if we break the law.”

“Of course,” said Xin. “If we break the law and murder our legal masters, then the rest of the Trans-Species Union will not permit such flagrantly illegal activity. We will achieve what is otherwise impossible and unite the galaxy against us. No one, not even the White Knights at their strongest could hope to withstand the combined forces of the Trans-Species Union. Certainly the Legion couldn’t.”

“Then why the suggestion?” asked Aelingir.

“Because it is only an illegal action if we destroy the world on purpose. We are only here because we continue the legal pretense that we act always on behalf of the Emperor. But if an unfortunate accident were to happen, if the mysterious Flek had an unexpected and lethal interaction with our zero-point weapons, then the destruction of the White Knight homeworld would merely be collateral damage. These things happen in all wars.”

No one spoke. Xin started to hope. Would they let her go ahead?

“Arun would never allow it,” said Indiya in a voice of cold fury.

“I’m not asking Arun,” shouted Xin, the calmness of the combat meds defeated by her anger at this ship rat lecturing her on how her man thought. Arun was hers, not that shriveled rat’s.

“You will continue with Operation Blowtorch,” Indiya ordered. “You are not to deploy scour-copters and you will never again mention the idea of deliberately burning this world. If even a hint of a rumor that this was suggested ever gets out, then you will be court-martialed, and that goes for all of you.”

Xin cut the connection and took another slug of combat drugs until her mind was no longer filled with the fantasy of snapping that scrawny neck with her bare hands.

“Major-General Dragon-Strike!”

“Yes, sir,” came the reply from a senior engineer loyal to her.

“A change to the timetable. It’s time to send in the Marine Combat Engineers.”

The Scour Squadrons returned to the world tree but this time they were under the direction of the Marine Engineer battalions who descended in giant Stork shuttles, accompanied by bulldozers, blasting and leveling equipment, and the tactical squads who would protect the combat engineers while they worked.

Before the combat engineering teams could even reach the candidate landing zones they would prepare for the waiting divisions of Assault Marines, the scour-copters set back to work, slicing away at the jumbled wreckage of the world tree to carve out navigable tunnels down.

Many times, the combined units would be beaten back by the nuclear fires still raging, or by the thickness of the obstacles they faced. But of enemy action, they encountered only an occasional shoulder-launched missile, easily batted away, but time was of the essence. Each time the engineering parties were forced to retrace their steps felt like a defeat, a delay in which the enemy would stiffen its defenses.

The engineers who did make it through landed on solid ground, the roof of a giant habitat that covered the continent, from which the towers and spires had sprouted. Once their areas were secure, the combat engineers cleared and leveled, piling up mounds of rubble to offer some protection to the artillery batteries who would soon get to work.

The staff officers on the
Gallipoli
were pale with worry – or whatever passed for extreme anxiety with their physiology. There were only so many times they could tell the commander-in-chief of the Human Legion that their CO was
unavailable
.

Even if Indiya was only acting C-in-C.

Xin was proud of her staff team. They had proven their competence and their loyalty. She wasn’t about to betray that loyalty by getting them all arrested.

She signaled to put Indiya through.

“Well?” demanded the Navy rat.

Xin had never heard so much disgust concentrated into a single syllable.

She sighed, finally realizing how weary of war she was. There wouldn’t be much more of this drent to put up with. “I was going to tell you, Admiral, that I was using my leeway as a field commander to put a flexible interpretation on your order to keep the scour-copters away. I kept them purely in a support capacity to the combat engineers, and at no point risked burning the atmosphere. I obeyed the spirit of your order. That would all have been true, but the real answer is simpler. I promised Arun that I’d do whatever it took to get the job done. And that’s what I did. What are you going to do, arrest me?”

The pause was drawn out enough to begin gnawing at Xin’s guts.
Either court-martial me or let me do my job, you scrawny ship rat. Don’t leave me dangling.

“Yes,” said Indiya. “Just as soon as I deem your role in Operation Blowtorch to be non-essential. I will not tolerate insubordination.”

“Fine. Now get out of my face. I’ve got a battle to win.”

Xin slumped back into her seat. Her staff officers were trying to pretend they hadn’t overheard her half of that exchange. She considered telling them not to worry, that the latest update from Arun’s medical team was that his body had finally gotten its act together, and he was stabilizing rapidly. Indiya could play games, but she wouldn’t be commander-in-chief much longer. He’d shared the
Bonaventure’s
secret with Indiya for decades – that still hurt like venom through her guts – but if it ever came to a choice between her and the ship rat, Arun would prevaricate and then make the right choice. Indiya was finished.

“Show’s over,” she growled. “Major-General Dragon-Strike, signal the engineers to withdraw. It’s time to get boots on the ground.”

“There’s your gun line,” thundered Master Gunner Zinelli, referring to the imaginary red rectangles visible in the head-up display inside Lance Bombardier Willie Knopf’s helmet. “I want your pieces anchored in 60 seconds and ready to fire no more than one minute later. Don’t you dare let me down. And I
will
be watching.”

Knopf barely registered Master Gunny’s words. When you let it be known you were in the aerial artillery, the sheen of glamor won a slug of admiration from even the most seen-it-all veteran. Judicious use of said glamor had opened up for Knopf some memorable rack-time encounters, but he wasn’t on liberty now. The reality of this battlefield was screaming for his mother, while clutching desperately onto the platform of an MA-41 aerial assault cannon. The sensation of being dropped out of an aerial transport, 3000 meters above a jumble of broken metal spires didn’t feel ‘aerial’ – ‘delayed impact’, more like. The jet packs on the gun crews’ battlesuits enabled short hops, not flight, as did the MA-41’s firing platform.

Knopf tried to ignore the shards of metal he was shooting past, mere meters from his head. Instead, he concentrated on the hollow red square with the number three inside that the Master Gunner had painted over the target firing position. But the firing position was more-or-less a flat area, cleared by the combat engineers from the mess of broken spires that littered the upper level of the metal world to a depth of 2000 meters.

He flinched as they descended through the broken walkways and spires, grateful that the artillery piece’s handholds were designed to withstand the crushing, powered grip of a terrified lance bombardier. Thank frakk too that Bomb was steering the gun platform through the lethal maze of tangled metal, with its eight-strong crew hanging on for grim life. Either Bombardier Kristens had nerves like a Tallerman, or she was on serious combat meds.

“Look out!” cried Velez.

Knopf forced himself to look up, just in time to see Gunner Velez smack against the jagged edge of a twisted spire. The metal shards snatched Velez off the gun platform and wedged him within its metal embrace.

Knopf looked away and squeezed his eyes shut.

Gunny sent a piercing shriek of white noise into Knopf’s helmet. “Don’t you shut your eyes on me, Lance Bombardier Knopf. Velez is still alive, which is more than can be said for you if you close your eyes again. Got it?”

“Yes, Master Gunner.”

Knopf forced his eyes open and tried to focus on the MA-41’s barrel. He tried to recite a gun servicing drill, but nothing could distract him from the gut-wrenching terror of this descent.

“Remember, I expect sixty-second anchoring,” said Gunny, and Knopf realized with a start that their firing position was racing up to meet them fast. He pushed away from the gun platform, ignited his jets and slowed to a gentle landing.

It took a handful of heartbeats for the realization to sink in that he hadn’t died, and then years of training and experience took over.

The flat rectangle of the MA-41’s firing platform was several meters adrift of the position Gunny had assigned. The seven surviving gun crew manhandled the weapon into its rightful place, and then Knopf activated the anchoring system.