War Against the White Knights (27 page)

It was his job to monitor its progress while the rest of the crew prepared to serve the artillery piece. He crouched down as his head-up display showed a seismic reading of the structure beneath the gun platform. It was no good setting up atop a damaged roof that would collapse on the first fire. They were in luck: their little slab of roof over this continental sized habitat had superficial heat damage, but was essentially sound. Knopf set off the gel layer that would bind the bottom of the gun platform to the roof and cushion some of the huge recoil forces. Heavy duty stabilizer pins cut through the roof to give extra stability.

“Gun platform secure, Bomb,” Knopf reported.

“Copy that,” replied the bombardier. “Go check that ‘C’ Echelon has bothered to show their hairy arses.”

A few moments with his HUD set to tactical mode was enough for Knopf to check the status of the battery’s deployment. ‘A’ Echelon, including Major Schneider the battery commander and three forward observers, had landed nearly a klick away to liaise with the Assault Marine Battalion for whom they were tasked with providing fire support. Seven out of the eight guns in the battery had survived the drop, and were setting up in the staggered gun line chosen by Master Gunner Zinelli, theoretically under the direction of Lieutenant Parker. They were seasoned veterans, all, but everyone in the gun crews knew that the real magicians of the 2nd Aerial Artillery Regiment were ‘C’ Echelon – the logistical wizards who were setting up armored shelters for the growing pile of ammo boxes a short distance away, and establishing supply routes to the fortified regimental ammo dumps being established in the area. They were also stretching tenuous logistical fingers up into the air, where AI-controlled supply crates were obeying instructions to fly down to their designated locations, while other crates maintained an aerial holding pattern under cover of the fallen spires and walkways.

Lieutenant Parker was already over with ‘C’ Echelon, and the result of her exhortations was the first pair of transport platforms already laden with shells and on their way to the gun line.

“Ammo line looks good, Bomb,” reported Knopf, and used the opportunity of this brief lull to run an equipment check on the MA-41.

Constant equipment checks were like an itch to the gunners that constantly needed scratching, but Knopf verified that everything was in order, and seconds later the gun was loaded, shells were stacked within easy reach, and Gamma Battery, 2
nd
Aerial Artillery awaited firing orders.

The division’s objective was to punch a hole through the top layers of the habitat to be exploited by shock troops, who would echelon through their division, the fresh troops passing through their tired ranks to renew the attack with vigor. The crazy thing was that the first wave of scour-copters had set the damned Flek-clouds alight, setting off miniature suns that had melted the towers and walkways of this world tree and burned deep down into the solid structure below. The molten metal had cooled into a formidable obstacle, a dense thicket of metal hundreds of meters deep. There was no way through many of the entry points into the habitat that the planners had identified from orbit.

So they needed new holes to be punched, and under the dense canopy of ruined towers, orbital and air support would prove tricky. The role of heavy fire support fell naturally to the artillery. Even without the maze of spires, the division would still have relied on their artillery, because everywhere was this poisonous, choking cloud of rusty-orange gas, muffling the explosions of the battle raging across the rooftop to Australia, and playing havoc with targeting systems. An artillery piece might not pack as much electronic wizardry as a missile, or look as showy as a squadron of ground attack aircraft strafing with their railguns, but all the gunners needed to get the job done was a forward observer equipped with the Mark1 eyeball and a fire control system programmed with the mathematics of parabolic trajectories, and tweaked for local gravity and atmospheric conditions.

No amount of this sodding Flek is gonna stop us gunners doing our job
, Knopf told himself. But the clouds seemed to hear his thoughts, because they began rolling in to the battery’s position like a sickly sea mist.

“It’s like the planet doesn’t want us here,” said Gunner Stuart.

“It’s a moon, not a planet,” said Gunner Evans. “Dongwit!”

“Whatever it is,” retorted Stuart, “it’s sending in the Flek to cover up the stench from your arse, Evans. Trust you to soil yourself on the ride down.”

“Stay sharp,” said the bombardier. “Battery Captain’s receiving firing orders, I can tell by the way he’s holding his head.”

Knopf looked over to Captain Jones to see for himself, but couldn’t make out more than a human-sized smudge where his tac-display said he should be. He didn’t doubt the Bomb was right – she had an uncanny knack of knowing these things.

Sure enough, new target data came through and the team serving Number 3 gun swiveled the piece around to the north-east while Knopf assisted the Bomb in programming the fire direction control system. The target was four klicks away – practically point-blank range on a proper battlefield of low hills or hilltop emplacements. However, the battery was deployed at the bottom of this crazy pile of ruined metal. A conventional trajectory would simply bounce off an obstruction, but the MA-41 could elevate its barrel like a howitzer, and they prepared a trajectory that would fire up through the way they had descended, and then down onto the target. The shell would rattle and bounce on the way down until the altitude-sensing fuse said it was time to blow. Besides, the entire regiment would combine their fire on this single target. Knopf didn’t know what the target was, and certainly couldn’t see for klicks through the debris and Flek, but he didn’t need that information. He had a geolocation, and that was all he required.

With the gun loaded and aimed, there was nothing left to do but wait and listen to the sounds of the attack going in from the battalion of Assault Marines that they were supposed to be giving fire support to.

Then Lieutenant Parker, the Command Post Officer, gave the order to fire, and the gun line thundered.

Knopf’s role was to monitor the status of the gun while the others aimed, loaded, and fired. He had trained and served for many years with HA-205s, a much heavier artillery piece than the MA-41’s lightweight design that meant its barrel was prone to oscillate.

The crews and machinery of the battery worked together as a single unit, raining shell after shell down on the target location. Knopf ignored the muzzle flashes, the rumbles that threatened to shake the rooftop into dust, and the sounds of the gun crew – all he concentrated on was the gun, making minor adjustments to the fire direction system to optimize the trajectory.

“That’s your fun over,” said the Master Gunner to all gun teams. “Prepare to pull out.”

Number 3 gun had fired 17 rounds in just under two minutes, most of which were still en route to join the fire lighting the roof four klicks away.

Job done, now it was time to hightail it out of there. Knopf unscrewed the stabilizers anchoring the gun platform to the roof, and unglued the buffer gel. When the battery was ready, the captain gave the order and they moved to a new firing position, frustrating any defenders who had been rolling back Gamma Battery’s firing trajectories to calculate counter-battery fire.

Knopf clung onto the gun platform’s handhold and tried not to shut his eyes as the Bomb flew the gun up, threading it through the deadly jumble of fallen towers and down to a new location, another space cleared by the Marine Engineers about 800 meters to the west of the initial position.

They survived their hop without further casualties, and from the new firing position, the battery delivered on what was its original objective: direct fire support to a battalion of the 87
th
Assault Marines, who were now heavily engaged with enemy infantry. The Assault Marines had intended to probe a gash cut through the roof of the habitat, but now defenders were spilling out and a familiar rumble shook the ground beneath the gun line – heavy gravitic motors. Tanks!

The major was there with the Assault Marines, as were the human observers and surveillance drones of ‘A’ Echelon, which meant the targeting information would be good.

This is where we earn our due
, thought Knopf with a warm swell of pride. No one else could do this.

Gamma Battery, 2nd Aerial Artillery, performed like a perfectly calibrated machine. ‘A’ Echelon fed a steady stream of accurately updated targeting data to the ‘B’ Echelon gun line that sent a steady 12 rounds per minute into the enemy, switching from melter rounds to corrosive to high explosive without missing a beat. And all the while, ‘C’ Echelon made ammo resupply in a hostile environment look easy.

Knopf wasn’t sure what was going on over on the rooftops, but he guessed their fire support at first halted the enemy counter-attack, and then turned the gouge through the roof into a much larger opening. Anything that survived what they were putting into that hole had to have supernatural defenses.

They kept firing and Knopf didn’t like what that was doing to the gun barrel. “HC3,” he reported, meaning the gun was approaching critical heat. The gun’s heat sink absorbed the bulk of the recoil energy, but its ability to cool the barrel was more limited and it was on the verge of warping. That was bad enough; worse was the knowledge that guns were never meant to reach the heat critical state, because in theory, the gun would have been destroyed by counter-battery fire before that point was reached.

Knopf looked at the gun crew. If they had pinched faces and deep frowns inside their helmets, it didn’t interrupt the steady rhythm of reloading and firing.

Gunny Zinelli knew what his gun crews were thinking before they did. “Keep it up, my gammas. Battery Captain says we are the ones that’s winning this battle. I don’t care if your weapons are glowing white, keep firing!”

It took two more shots of corrosive rounds before disaster struck. The sound of an explosion spun Knopf around. He expected to see the barrel had burst, but that would have been wonderful in comparison to what he did see – the residue of an explosion, about 15 meters beyond the rightmost gun.

The shell burst wasn’t one of theirs.

“Move out!” screamed the Gunny.

Knopf fumbled at the gun controls, unscrewing the stabilizers and unsticking the buffer gel beneath the gun platform.

“Come on!” he shouted, as the enemy fire rapidly upped its rate from an occasional burst to a constant bombardment.

His battlesuit AI had just enough time to estimate that they were being subjected to 50 rounds a minute when Knopf was blown high into the stinking, rusty air and clear of his gun. In a daze, he scrambled to his feet and raced back to Number 3, dimly aware of ominous warnings from his suit’s medical diagnostics. He reached three paces before he fell headlong.

“Let her go,” said the Bomb.

Knopf looked behind him and realized that the bombardier had tackled him to the ground.

“We’ve done our job,” she told Knopf, “and so have our guns. Let them go.”

The enemy bombardment had concentrated on the guns, but were now widening their barrage. The battery’s inert shells waited patiently for the gun crews, blown across the firing position but engineered to only explode when their fuses gave the correct fire instruction. The guns though – they were tangled debris.

“Come on, Knopfy,” urged Evans. “I always said you were too in love with the length of your weapon.”

Beneath the wafer-thin humor, Knopf heard the well of hurt and shame Evans felt at losing their piece. He scrambled to his feet and raced to join the rest of ‘B’ Echelon who were jumping up and into a nearby fallen walkway. As he ran, he glanced over at ‘C’ Echelon to see if they needed assistance, but they were already spiriting away ammunition for use by the rest of the regiment.

The 40-odd survivors of Gamma Battery regrouped in the half-melted walkway, which was listing at a 30-degree angle. Knopf tried to ignore the charred corpses, the wrecked interior, and helped Bomb to gather the remnants of Number 3 crew, while at the same time keeping an eye on the approaching enemy.

They were Gliesans, hundreds of them, whose naturally evolved gliding ability had been enhanced by a lightweight exoskeleton that massively enhanced their wing muscles. These Gliesans could not only fly, they could also carry mortars and box after box of bombs to satisfy the mortars’ rapid fire rate. It was these mortars that had killed the battery’s guns, and now the Gliesans were advancing to take possession of their vacated firing position.

The gun crews had lost their pieces, but weren’t defenseless. All the while they had served the guns, their assault carbines had been clamped to the back of their battlesuits. The 2
nd
Aerial Artillery Regiment was part of a Marine division, and everyone from a novice gunner to Major-General Ling, the CO, had been born with an SA-71 in their little baby fingers.

The battery had entered the walkway through a hole blasted out of its side. Knopf joined the others in firing back, putting two darts through one about to fire its mortar. That only brought a temporary respite as bombs burst all around the entrance, and shook the top of the walkway.

Lieutenant Parker led Number 3 crew and two other gunners to race up the walkway to scout out the interior and establish a firing position higher up. Luckily the next room along had exterior windows that served as gun ports, and interior ones with a view of the hole they had entered through.

The Gliesans took to the air like a swarm of deadly insects. The carbine fire from Gamma Battery was devastating. At close range, even spray and pray took its toll of the huge and unarmored Gliesan wings, but those downed Gliesans could still crawl through the cover afforded by the debris of the battlefield, and kept up a constant fire upon Gamma Battery. Meanwhile, those with undamaged wings had landed on the walkway and established themselves farther up, posting snipers around the vicinity. In a contest against an enemy who could fly, height was not your friend.