War Against the White Knights (30 page)

“Someone put an odor filter around this post,” she ordered. “And a med-filter. I don’t want any of us to catch that human disease.”

Aelingir finally put the human irregulars from her mind and monitored the reports feeding through. Her armored divisions were slicing through the enemy defenses, never giving them time to firm up before their positions were overrun or outflanked. Surrounded and outnumbered, whole units were surrendering to Legion forces, and once the rot of surrender had set in, it could only spread quickly. To encourage more surrenders, Aelingir had even given orders to keep prisoners alive, for now.

The lead elements of Army Group Armored Fist had already thrust down seven levels from the location of Aelingir’s command post when her staff officers were suddenly bombarded with urgent new updates – ominous news of an enemy super weapon.

Aelingir reached inside her augmented mind and reviewed the spike in combat casualties. The 119
th
Armor Division had suffered the most, so she commed its commander, Major-General Strahn.

“I had two regiments of grav tanks racing down to Level 10 when they were caught by this new weapon,” explained Strahn. “An artillery column was caught too.”

“Explain properly, Strahn. What weapon?”

“We are passing all our data up the tech chain. But right now, we don’t know. It’s as if there is a ring of death buried in the walls. Anything caught inside the ring when it turned on was destroyed. Soldiers, vehicles, any form of equipment, it all ceased to function.”

The reports were the same throughout the habitat. Aelingir commanded the bulk of the Legion’s land forces, and her army group had been lured into the interior, spreading out over hundreds of klicks as its columns flowed around defensive strong points and sought always to advance. Only now that headlong advance had stalled, and her forces were left spread out and vulnerable to counter-attack.

Determined not to let the advance stall a moment longer than necessary, Aelingir attacked the problem from every angle. Combat engineers were brought in to blast and drill alternative routes through floors and walls, but the going was very slow. They tried digging around these deadly and invisible obstacles, searching for a power supply or control mechanism that they could disrupt. But whenever they got close, the rings detected the hostile presence and flared up bursts of defensive energy that ruined cutting equipment, and the teams employing them. Most of all, Aelingir growled at every report that emphasized the Legion’s utter ignorance. What was this deadly form of energy? It might as well be magic for all the Legion techs could tell her.

It was nearly an hour after the enemy had switched on their device before Operations Support in orbit came up with practical information that she could actually use. By now the New Empire was beginning to counter-attack, the defensive rings being turned off selectively to allow them to pick off isolated groups of Legion troops. Their fightback was small-scale for now, but would surely grow.

Ops Support illustrated their findings with a 3-D virtual representation of the Australia habitat’s upper layers. She magnified the view until she could see individual tunnels and chambers resembling a complex grid of pipework. Glowing coils of power snaked around those pipes, promising death to anything caught inside. The coils writhed around the roads, ramps, and chambers of the habitat, a slow progress that would eventually pass around every inch of the upper layers.

Aelingir flicked her ears back at this outrageous denial of certain victory. With this intelligence update that at least predicted the movement of these defensive coils, her forces could avoid their effect, but the advance had ground to a halt, and her plan had depended upon speed.

“Get me Lieutenant-General Mountain Root,” she instructed one of her staff officers. “Deep Strike is our only hope for a quick victory now.”

Mountain Root cogitated over the report from ser scribe.

Working in conjunction with other nests was difficult enough, but close cooperation with other species was beyond ser – a confusing detail left to ser senior scribes. But sie could not evade this pitiful tale of defeat that sie was hearing from the Jotun commander of the main strike force.

Although ser nest would deviate its plans to assist if need be, the aliens from the planet Khallene were another matter entirely, being impossible to command with any certainty, even with the assistance of the human with the purple eyes. And the Khallenes were on the brink of conducting their vital mission. They could not be tasked with disrupting this new defensive measure stymying General Aelingir. Not yet.

“Tell the Jotun that we shall aid it as soon as we are able.”

The scribe laid its antennae back in acknowledgement and scurried away to convey Mountain Root’s message.

The scribe had no scent of leadership, but it was highly intelligent. It would sweeten the words, but all parties would understand them to mean that General Aelingir’s forces would have to look to their own survival until the Khallenes could be diverted to this new purpose.

Mountain Root released scents of confidence and martial intent, but even the most poetic scent music could not overcome the stench of this world. Sie flicked a foreleg in a gesture of command, and images appeared of ser nest warriors crammed into hastily built galleries. They swayed, dormant for now, their bodies working to eject the poisons they had taken on by burrowing down deep below the metal city.

This entire world tasted of poison. Even the dried husks of cratered moons, dead for eons, tasted better. Great Commander Pedro had intended to birth a new colony here, but that was out of the question now. This world was rotten to its core.

Another scribe messenger appeared, exuded submissive scents, and reported that enemy reinforcements were inbound. An estimated 800,000 of them.

At last!

Excitement and frustration battled to be the general’s dominant mood. The critical moment for Army Group Deep Strike was fast approaching in the form of troop-carrying transit canisters shot at high speed along the mass transport tunnels that were buried deep inside the moon.

Mountain Root’s forces were buried even deeper, though, and the most important weapon in ser arsenal were the strange Khallenes, who had stretched their tendrils of influence up into the control systems of the transport tunnels. They insisted that their corruption of the enemy systems would be undetected, like a blood-sucking parasite that injected anesthetic into their unwitting prey so they never felt the proboscis enter.

And it seemed the Khallenes were correct, according to the reports sie was seeing. The power to the transit tunnels cut out abruptly, sending the hurtling transport canisters scraping against the tunnel walls in a shower of sparks before bumping into each other as they ground to a halt. The general realized sie was circling ser antennae like a pup, paused, and then carried on swinging. Why not? Much glory was about to accrue to ser nest.

The dazed survivors of the tube crashes cut themselves out of the wreckage. Many of them wore powered armor, and it would take more than this hard landing to hurt them. The transport capsules themselves were barely damaged, even if the less armored occupants had been tossed around inside.

The enemy armored infantry pressed ahead, able to run for extended periods, as fast as the fastest land animals in nature.

Could the Khallene cyber parasites do more than crash the transit canisters?

They could.

The mudsuckers waited until the soldiers were several klicks clear of their transport before reactivating the tube system and propelling the transport capsules forward, picking up speed until they crushed the enemy troops. The capsules were robust enough to carry on for several more klicks beyond the mess of scattered limbs, broken equipment, and crushed flesh before coming to a halt.

And then, to make certain of their effect, the Khallenes reversed the polarity of the tubes, accelerating the capsules in the opposite direction, back toward any remaining survivors.

Scribes rushed in to join the general in ser chamber, sucking greedily on the shared scent of victory. Sie indulged them this pleasure. The enemy would eventually cut through the wreckage, or find other routes to reinforce this continent. But that would take time. The victory smelled sweet indeed.

But there was work still to be done. Mountain Root signaled for calm and issued fresh instructions.

“Tell the Jotun commander that our Khallenes are being diverted to aid it, although neither the rapidity, nor the effectiveness of their assistance can be guaranteed. However, if Aelingir so desires, our warriors are no longer needed to fend off the enemy reinforcements. I shall place them at its disposal, if it wishes.”

The Legion troops were not led by fools. Through hidden spybot camera feeds, General Scrutineer-Vigilant watched as the scattered units began to anticipate the slow progress of the defensive coils, and move themselves out of harm’s way. The pleasure that she felt in her heart to face a worthy adversary was tainted by stabs of disquiet. She had seen the face of General Aelingir, her foe – and tried but failed to kill her with missiles and assassin bots. It was easy to find Aelingir worthy because her opponent was a proud and competent Jotun, but would the Legion general regard
her
opponents as worthy?

She doubted it.

Shackled by obligation to the odious mutant masters, Scrutineer-Vigilant had managed to suppress the question of whether she fought with honor while she had been fighting forces loyal to a rival faction of the masters. This new foe, this self-proclaimed Human Legion, was different. However often the Legion commanders claimed an unconvincing loyalty to the Emperor, in their hearts the Legion soldiers she saw on her screens were clearly fighting for themselves.

And that was the most corrosive idea in the galaxy.

Her good friend, Deeproot-Steadfast, had died luring the Legion invaders deeper within the habitat. The mutant master had sent her on a suicide mission, but she had carried out her final duty with dignity. Scrutineer-Vigilant licked the outside of her fangs, no longer caring to hide this outward sign of her inner turmoil.

The forces loyal to the mutant rebellion might win this battle, perhaps even the Civil War, but this campaign to take the masters’ homeworld and kill the old Emperor was surely doomed. She would die here on this moon, fighting for the masters she despised. She no longer knew how to extract dignity from that fate. The stoicism of her friend was beyond her.

A comforting hand rested on her shoulder. It belonged to Colonel Pierce-Wonder, who was passing through the sector command post.

Scrutineer-Vigilant tensed. The colonel’s touch felt well-intentioned, but its implication was deadly. She drew on her memory of Deeproot-Steadfast’s dignified end, and relaxed the thick walls of muscle around her neck and shoulders. If the colonel intended to extend her finger claws and slice through the thick fur and muscle to the vulnerable arteries below, then the general would not fight her execution.

It was the lightest of touches, but as the seconds stretched on without resolution, the colonel’s hand seemed to grow heavier until it was a crushing weight.

What would the colonel do next? Scrutineer-Vigilant guessed that she didn’t know herself.

Instead of nicking a vital artery, the colonel chose to speak: “Do not forget that the secret of our mutant masters’ success is that they bind the foreseers to them. Together they can see into the future, into
our
future. This is why we fight on their behalf.”

The colonel was playing a dangerous game. Was she speaking treason or dissuading Scrutineer-Vigilant from thinking damning thoughts? The general worded her reply with absolute care. “If we betray our masters, then they will already know this. The foreseers have either already told them, or
already chosen to hide this foreknowledge
.”

“Are you suggesting that if we were to… to follow the agenda of our hearts then we could not doom our people any more than they already are?”

“It is a strange thought, Colonel, I know, but our words and thoughts are already treasonous.” The general felt the truth of her words emboldening her. “If there have been consequences, then they would have already been felt. Consequently, we are free in the present to do as we choose.”

“Your words have logic as well as treason, but I fear you are unwittingly manipulated. I hear that humans are a tool of the foreseers. If we aid the humans, I fear we would swap our existing masters for a new tyranny.”

“Possibly.” General Scrutineer-Vigilant considered this new angle. “But could the humans and foreseers be worse than the master mutants?”

“Oh, yes.”

There was a taste in the air of tension, tingling like electricity on the general’s tongue. Then she exploded into motion, leaping from her seat and drawing all four of her sidearms. But as she tensed her trigger fingers, ready to end this dangerous and perplexing colonel, she found herself staring into the barrels of four brandished plasma pistols.

“It appears we are at impasse,” said the colonel.

“What is the meaning of this?” boomed the voice of a master mutant controller. Followed by the groveling Staff-General Ndjaek, the mutant had entered the command post with its back a writhing green mass of poison-tipped tentacles – a mode it often used when thoughtful. Without any apparent transition, the mutant master transformed into the angrier mode of glowing red and yellow skin – like hot, running lava – and a trio of wickedly sharp horns sprouting from the heavily armored brow ridge. The master lowered his head and marched forward, radiating menace.

In perfect synchronicity, each Jotun swung all four upper limbs toward the master and fired simultaneously.

The mutant master halted, and looked down in surprise at the gaping holes in its armored body that oozed bubbling orange fluid. Then it looked up at its attackers, but it appeared rooted to the spot.

The two Jotun officers and the Friokeban staff general watched with interest as their master elongated its incisor fangs, and growled, but everyone noticed the feebleness of the sound. No one in recorded history had attacked a mutant master. It was probably as ignorant as to its physical vulnerabilities as the Jotuns.