War Against the White Knights (6 page)

“Got it in one,” said Remus. “Here we go. Avanti, you take Papa-Kilo Seven. Cragger take Six, and I will take Niner. We deploy payload and then come back for Eight using Attack Pattern Delta.”

Remus flew his Swordfish in a corkscrew pattern at his target. Papa-Kilo Niner steered away, but it was such a lumbering behemoth that its maneuver made little difference to the nimble X-Boat. He screamed into the target before halting just 20 meters from the planet killer’s outer layer – Remus couldn’t think of the roughly finished mass as a hull – and let loose his new weapon. Something spun out of his X-Boat’s crescent wings. He didn’t even know what his new ordnance looked like, but it registered a hit.

Without obvious weapons, the planet killer had nothing to fire back at him. He flew away at maximum gees anyway, before turning back for Papa-Kilo Eight.

Remus wasn’t sure what to expect from his first target. There was no explosion, no change in bearing other than to continue its slow turn. In perfect tactical coordination the three Swordfish crisscrossed over Papa-Kilo Eight and loosed another salvo of their new ordnance.

He led his flight away to a safe distance and observed the result. The outer layers of the targets began to strip away. Was this the effect of the new weapon, to make the target tear itself to pieces?

“Reckon we were too late, Reamer.”

There was a catch in Cragger’s voice and it took a moment for Remus to understand why. The fragmenting outer surface of the targets was breaking into needles. Giant darts the length of his X-boat.

The targets, the strange-looking hulls… they were each a swarm of kinetic torpedoes.

“Do we go after them?” demanded Avanti.

“Negative,” Remus replied grimly. “We’re too late. Against beasts that size, all our railguns would do is detach the kinetic torpedoes for them. Am assigning fresh targets.” As he began painting into the tactical net a new trio of planet killers farther out from the planet – their next targets – he couldn’t help but look on with horror at the planet killers. The torpedoes had miniature thruster engines, just enough to spread them out into a deadly rain. Already the dart tips glowed with the heat of atmospheric braking. By the time they hit the ground at terminal velocity their momentum would be ferocious.

“Our weapons made no difference at all,” Remus said softly.

A new voice came through the speaker. “I never knew you sucked alluvial mud through your teeth, boy.”

Remus stiffened in his seat. The comm signal was coming from Wing Commander Dock.

Remus’s flight was already coming into range of their new targets. He signaled to hold back while he had time to interpret Dock’s riddles.

“Pardon, sir?”

“Wake up, boy! You’re not a damned mudsucker. Not ugly enough for a start and not half as smart.”

“But, sir. If we hit the outer layer of the Papa-Kilos with our new ordnance, the target just sheds its skin, and our cyber bombs with it.”

“We don’t know that means they’re ineffective, Flight-Sergeant. Anyway, I’d already considered that. I’m passing fresh targets. Time your attack well. Dock out.”

Remus’s Swordfish received fresh target data: a four-ship formation of planet killers farther out, just inside the minefield. His flight changed course to intercept the new targets.

As they moved to intercept, he watched the pane on his tac-display that showed the scene behind as the planet killers they’d abandoned carried out their deadly function. The layers of torpedoes had fallen away to reveal the central core of the planet killers: two cones stuck together at their bases. Unlike the kinetic torpedoes, which tipped into the lethal equations of orbital mechanics that Remus understood all too well, the central core turned about in a long, lazy arc that defied the laws of physics, until its nose pointed straight at the planet’s surface. He had the sense that an invisible force other than gravity reached up and pulled the 700 meter-long ships downward. A sharp tug and they disappeared out of view, leaving shockwaves in their wake that raced out through the atmosphere until the entire hemisphere churned with angry clouds.

Bright lights lit the sky, the clouds softening the searing blasts of energy so they looked pretty, even delicate. Whether they were the planet killers hitting home, or the defense from the zero-point air defenses, he couldn’t tell.

The wing commander was wrong. Their weapons had done nothing to prevent the ship striking Khallini. Dock was a strange old geezer, and Remus wasn’t sure that he respected the man even though he did respect his rank. For an old guy, he could outfly most of his command and scuttlebutt had it that he’d been made an officer by the Jotuns in the days before Momma had joined General McEwan in his revolution. The rumor mill spun other dark tales about Dock too, and all of it was probably drent.

All Remus could say of the commander was that he always had his reasons for doing anything.

And now, with mounting excitement, Remus could see why Dock had reassigned their targets. A dark cloud flew in from space and surrounded the four planet killers.

Avanti whooped. “It’s the frakking cavalry!”

Remus thought the incoming wave of friendly AI-drones looked more like a swarm of bees than mounted soldiers. He quickly revised his comparison to a plague of locusts. Dock must have given his little AI-controlled gun platforms highly unusual instructions because when Remus was ready for his attack run, the drones peeled away from the enemy ships to reveal they had been picked clean. The thick layers of detachable kinetic torpedoes had been shot off to reveal the vulnerable hull beneath.

The three Swordfish made two efficient passes that flung the mudsucker weapon out of their crescent wings, hitting all four enemy vessels.

Remus waited for some effect. But there was nothing. The planet killers picked up speed, still on course to penetrate Khallini’s atmosphere.

The weapons were ineffective, and when another wave of planet killers appeared just inside the minefield, Remus realized so too would be their defense.

But they had to do their best. “Let’s hit them again,” Remus ordered. “Use railguns this time.”

Before he could change course to come in for another attack a whistle came over the comm channel. Was that Dock or the side effect of a cyber-attack?

Then a piercing shriek drilled into his head. Instinctively he tried to clamp his hands over his ears to block out the aural attack, despite the fact his helmet was in the way.

But the noise cut out and Remus watched open mouthed as every planet killer simultaneously made a quarter turn anti-clockwise along its central axis, righted itself, and then made a quarter turn clockwise.

“What the hell are those things doing?” he asked.

“Victory roll,” answered Avanti. “The beautiful mudsuckers have only gone and done it. They’ve cyber-boarded and taken control.”

While the comm channel filled with Avanti and Cragger’s whoops and cheers, Remus needed to reassess the situation before he could join their celebrations. The planet killers were all turning back from the planet. The Wing Commander’s X-Boat squadrons, supported by swarms of AI-drones, were tearing through the fleeing Hardit survivors of their other attacks, and he was still receiving tactical updates from the ground, which meant at least someone down there was still alive. But
Beowulf
…

Ice gripped his heart. He re-checked the tactical grid, but it made no difference.
Beowulf
had been lost. He froze, his mind unable to grasp the enormity of that simple fact. He was trying to locate Romulus when he received an incoming transmission from Khallini-Control.

“Reamer this is K-CON. We need you planetside to pilot Storks. Leave your X-Boats at the OP2 platform and get your asses down the elevator pronto. There’s work to be done. This isn’t over by a long shot.”

“Say again, K-CON. This isn’t over?”

The operator working the Khallini Control call sign sighed. “Oh, what the hell, Reamer? The Chief Strategic Analyst has confirmed what I had thought were panicked rumors. And that freak’s suspicions are firmer than most normal folks’ facts.”

Remus’s mind brought up an image of the Chief Strategic Analyst, a strange little man inside a deep-sea bubble. He’d tried to murder General McEwan and Colonel Lee’s children. Rom always said he’d gotten off too lightly.

“This attack was not an isolated incident. Every fleet, every Legion-controlled system has been attacked simultaneously. No invasions. This was a coordinated pre-emptive strike designed to inflict maximum damage. I’ve lost contact with four planetary systems altogether, meaning their Hummers acting as comm nodes are dead. ‘K’ Fleet was hit hardest. I’m hearing 25% casualties.”

“Chodding hell.”

“Damned right. Whoever they are got the drop on us all right. They wanted to punish the Legion and the bastards got what they wanted.”

“I’ve got a good idea who they are.”

“Yes, Flight-Sergeant Remus,” came a new voice – a computer translation. “We all do. This is K-CON Actual. Now cut your small talk and get your flight’s buttocks down here like you’ve been told. I need you flying Storks up to those dead planet killers to make sure they stay safe, and to start getting some hard intelligence.”

K-CON Actual… that was Major-General Siniseen, the senior officer in the system and the most ferocious Littorane he’d ever seen. “Wilco, K-CON Actual. We’re on our way.”

Remus edged his Swordfish into the edge of the danger zone of his momentum dump system. It would only shave a few seconds off his journey time but fear and duty urged him onward. Hardits or not, a new force operating alone or in alliance with an Imperial faction, whoever this new enemy was their aim had been to degrade the Legion’s fighting strength.

Which could only mean one thing.

They were coming back.

Most importantly to Remus, moving forward kept him looking backward; back to the debris field that had been the
Beowulf
and the combat space patrol that had protected her.

Romulus was supposed to be assigned to that patrol unit, but the data on his brother was confusing. One thing was clear.

Romulus was missing.

Such was the chaos and destruction in the wake of the Hardit sneak attack that it took nearly two days before Remus picked up any clue as to the fate of his brother. The trail led to a hospital ward overflowing with wounded, and a sleeping Wolf-woman diagnosed with suffering the effects of prolonged oxygen starvation.

Brain damage
. The thought sickened him.

He sat by Janna’s bed for hours until the light of consciousness returned to Janna’s eyes and strengthened this time, rather than flickering out as it had so many times before. Remus bent over and kissed her scaly forehead. The green hexagonal plates of the ginquin parasite felt like warm polished leather.

The kiss ended, but he was unwilling to relinquish the touch of his lips and kept his lips pressed against her. Janna was all he had left. If he let go, she might leave him too.

Remus was cut off from his mother. Worse. He had received occasional word over the years, but she was stranded on Tranquility with only intermittent and often corrupted lightspeed comms. It took thirty years to pass a message there and back. It was like receiving word from a ghost. And although he had no memory of her, the death of his birth mother when he was a baby still left a gaping wound in his heart. If Romulus was truly gone then his girlfriend, Janna, would be the only family he had left. She was so desperately precious to him.

He sat back upright and turned his head away, unable to look Janna in the eye and see there that his brother was dead.

Janna reached out and squeezed his hand. “He was still alive when we ejected,” she said. “Don’t give up hope yet.”

“What happened?” Remus turned back and peered into Janna’s face, as if hoping to find answers in that scaly face. “It’s a blessing you survived, Janna. But I don’t understand. You were cut off and surrounded. How is it that I see you here alive?”

She glanced away, searching her memories for an answer. When she looked back at him, her eyes were filled with sadness. “It’s no use. I can’t remember anything between ejecting and waking up in hospital.” She added halfheartedly, “They say my memories might return.”

Her words propped up Remus, but only for a few seconds. Then the hope drained out of him and he knew in his heart that his brother had left him forever. He drew the wounded Wolf to him in as tight an embrace as he dared. Only the thought that it would embarrass her kept him from sobbing. His eyes streamed with silent tears.

“Hey, little brother.”

Remus froze. Was this grief overwhelming his mind?

“Hands off my girlfriend!”

“Rom!” screamed Janna.

It really was him.

Romulus clapped Remus on the shoulder, a smile plastered all over his silly face. “Don’t look so surprised, bro. I always make it back. It’s you lot I have to worry about.”

As Romulus moved on to Janna’s bedside, the joy froze over Remus’s face. Then it shattered.

He studied Janna’s expression as she pulled Romulus toward her and eased into his embrace before they started to kiss. No, she hadn’t seen what he had.

Remus had seen right through the smile on Romulus’s face to the terrible burden he carried on the inside.

Something was wrong with his brother.

Very wrong.

A MEMORY
OF
THE FUTURE

HISTORY OF THE LEGION

– Civil Administration and Politics Part I

The Human Legion grew to become something much larger and more significant than its originators ever conceived, but its origins lay in the Human Marine Corps and its depot planet of Tranquility. The humans were slaves, and their Jotun officers were also slaves, albeit more elevated ones. This was a standard part of the White Knight strategy for regional dominance: vulnerable worlds, and those conquered by other factions, would beg for the White Knights’ protection against an extremely dangerous galaxy.

White Knight Vassal worlds were allowed a semblance of autonomy to run their own affairs so long as their economic, military, and scientific endeavors were bent to the will of their overlords. Indeed, in comparison with invasion, occupation, or destruction at the hands of other strong species, the legally binding terms dictated by the White Knights in return for their protection appeared extremely lenient.