Death World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 5) (9 page)

-9-

It was precisely eleven hours later, down to the minute, when we finally spotted our quarry.

They weren’t trying to hide, not really. They’d taken some precautions, but nothing our techs couldn’t penetrate. Their radio network, for example, was set up to emit low-power, diffuse transmissions which looked like white noise, and the exhaust plumes of their ships weren’t nearly as brilliant as those an Imperial ship might produce.

But then maybe that was because Empire ships had little to fear inside the borders of Frontier 921.
These
people were the fugitives. They had plenty to worry about.

Primus Winslade gave us our mission briefing personally. He explained that we were the designated shock troops who’d been hand-picked for the honor of being the first ones dropped on the newly discovered planet.

I had to give Winslade a few points for style. He was making the best of the situation, one which I knew he couldn’t be happy about.

“This is a rare opportunity,” Winslade said, addressing the entire cohort from the forward wall of our respective unit modules. “We’ve lost our dragons due to the depredations of these criminals. Now, it’s time for payback. We’ll drop, engage, and exterminate. We’re Imperial troops with a clear mandate. These creatures, whoever they are, broke Galactic Law when they attacked Earth’s freighter. At that moment, they all forfeited their lives.”

Hearing these words, I frowned a little. Sure, I wanted to kill the culprits who attacked our planet and dropped burning metal bricks onto my family, but that didn’t necessarily mean I was out to kill every alien on the world we were approaching. That would be like killing all the relatives of a murderer. Sure, the criminal deserved justice—but did his grandma have to die as well?

“As representatives of the Empire,” Winslade continued, “you should feel no remorse in your hearts. No pity. No quarter. Remember, they gave none to our people when they attacked and disabled our freighter on its final approach. There were over thirty thousand casualties within moments.”

Still frowning, I tried not to shuffle my feet or say anything. It required a concentrated effort, but I managed it.

“Here’s how the invasion will unfold. First, we’ll launch a full strike with our broadsides. The enemy has a large base, which we’ve located by tracing their transmissions. That base will be destroyed. The landing will then commence, with this cohort leading the way. It will be our mission to mop up any remaining resistance.”

A cheer went up from the unit. I smiled proudly. There wasn’t a coward among them. A few were more cautious than the rest, but no one shirked from a good fight.

“There are possible caveats to be considered, however,” Winslade continued. “Events may not unfold as we plan. We’re unclear as to the enemy’s precise strength. We might be facing a strong space defense, for example, before we reach the planet itself. So far, it appears we have the element of surprise on our side. Imperator Turov elected to apply massive thrust with the smaller star to our stern, hiding our emissions signature in the glare of the red sun. From the enemy’s point of view, we probably look like an unusual solar flare.”

I gave a tiny nod in appreciation of the strategy—although I doubted Turov herself had come up with it. She’d clearly had the foresight to recognize a good idea when she heard one, no matter who had thought it up. As was her nature, she’d probably ordered the tactic to be employed then quickly took credit for it when she briefed her top officers.

“This ruse can’t protect us forever, unfortunately,” Winslade continued. “Cruising at high speeds, we’re approaching the point at which we must slow down or slam into the target planet. After that moment, they may spot us and launch a counter-offensive.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop after Winslade mentioned a counter-offensive. The troops had been all grim smiles and determination, but the idea that we might soon meet up with a defending enemy fleet, or at least a missile barrage, hadn’t sunk in until now.

The last thing a ground-pounder wants to encounter among the stars is a fleet battle. Under such circumstances, we were no more than spam in a can, as the old saying went.

“We’ll know the truth within eight hours,” Winslade concluded. “Deceleration has already begun, and it will continue until we’ve reached the target. Everyone is to stay in full kit, ready to deploy when the word is given.”

The briefing ended, and the wall of the module went dark. Afterward, Graves called his officers and top noncoms to a meeting. Under our feet, the deck was heaving and shuddering. We felt about an extra half-gravity of weight on our bones. The inertial dampeners couldn’t contain all the fantastic stresses that physics was applying to
Minotaur
as we went into what amounted to a long, roaring skid toward the target world.

“Sounds like the brass has it pretty well in hand this time,” Adjunct Leeson said, walking ahead of his veterans.

I glanced at Veteran Harris, but he didn’t say anything. He looked kind of glum, but that was all.

Accordingly, I decided to give the adjunct what he expected. My natural skills with bullshit often came in handy when motivational statements were called for.

“Right you are, sir,” I said loudly, without a trace of doubt in my voice.

Not to be outdone, Harris sucked in a breath. “The enemy are as good as dead, sir,” he boomed. “They’ll never know what hit them. Justice will be done, and this nest of thieves will be wiped out!”

“Damn straight,” agreed Leeson without even looking over his shoulder.

We hit the hatch with outstretched gauntlets, and it retreated from our touch. Graves was in his office. After all three of his adjuncts, plus Harris, Johnson, me and a half-dozen other veterans filtered in, the room was a little cramped.

We gathered around the desktop display. Graves was tapping at it, sliding icons around and projecting colorful arcs.

The planet itself had a lavender-green cast to it. I wasn’t sure if that was due to the atmosphere or the natural shade of the surface.

“This is it,” Graves said, waving his hand over the map. “The planet is fractionally smaller than Earth, with a gravitational pull of about point-eight Gs. It has a breathable atmosphere, and although it’s hot, it isn’t unbearably so.”

He paused to run his eyes over each of us in turn.

“That’s where the good news ends,” he continued. “There’s life here—lots of it. We’ve got high oxygen levels, and as far as we can tell, the whole place is a massive forest. When I say massive, I don’t just mean in extent—which is shore to shore on every continent. I’m talking about the growths themselves, which seem to be mega-flora.”

Frowning, I looked around the group. A few of the others looked concerned at the centurion’s statement. Others, like me, had no idea what he was talking about.

My hand went up almost before I knew I was raising it.

“What is it, McGill?”

“Sir? What exactly is mega-flora?”

“Plants. I’m talking about huge plants,” Graves replied. “These trees, or flowers—or whatever they are—they’re
big
. Very big. We’re talking bigger than the redwoods of Earth for the small ones.”

He let that sink in. Adjunct Leeson raised a gauntlet next, and he asked the question I was pondering. “Sir? Are we talking about a thick forest canopy? And if so, how are we going to get through it and down onto the ground?”

Graves pointed a finger at him. “Bingo, Leeson. We’re going to have trouble. Two paths are open to us. The most obvious is to fly down in lifters and try to squeeze in-between the growths with careful piloting. The other approach is to simply fire down everyone in capsules and hope some punch through to the ground and make it out alive.”

No one replied. No one looked happy with either suggestion, but Graves didn’t seem to notice.

“I like the pod-drop approach, myself,” he said. “It’s quicker, but dangerous. On the other hand, using lifters risks a long hang-time over the target, giving defensive batteries plenty of time to lock on and shoot us down.”

Alarmed looks were exchanged. People frowned and massaged their chins.

Both invasion approaches sounded like suicide to me. Particularly the pod-drop method. I didn’t like the idea of coming down in a bullet-shaped capsule and slamming into a thousand-meter tall oak tree.

“Of course,” Graves went on, “a secondary concern when faced with a world loaded with mega-flora is the possibility of mega-fauna to go with it. Some of you may be senior enough with the legion to remember dropping at Barnard’s Star?”

He looked around, but no one else appeared to recall that particular campaign. It had probably happened decades ago.

“No matter,” Graves said. He smiled and chuckled in a rumbling fashion, as if musing on a distant memory. “That was a mess. We came down into a world full of marine life. The oceans weren’t deep, only a mile or so, and the planet was dotted with islands. We’d heard about the big aquatic species, of course, but hadn’t realized so many of them could come humping up onto land if they wanted to. Huge leviathans came after us the moment we landed. They gulped down recruits with an appetite that was almost insatiable.”

He shook his head and sighed. “I was an adjunct back then. Those were the days. Anyway, we’ve found only moderate methane levels, indicating there
is
animal life, but not necessarily
huge
animal life.”

The briefing went on, detailing our insertion plan. As Graves spoke, I began to grow an appreciation for the difficulty of our task. We simply didn’t know what we would be facing.

Normally, when an Earth legion flew out on a mission, we at least came to the party with a solid conception of what we’d be facing. But not this time. This world wasn’t even supposed to be here at all. The system was essentially unknown to us. We couldn’t look it up in our databases. We had no maps, no data…

And we didn’t have much time, either. There was only a few hours to go, and we had to make crucial decisions before we reached the target.

Graves made these difficult calls without a qualm. He gave us our orders after laying out his thin intel, his hopes, and his worries.

“We’re going to try a combination approach,” he said in summary. “We’re part of Winslade’s Lucky cohort, so we’re the guinea pigs. Half the cohort will be fired down into the canopy of this vast forest like a spray of bullets. The other half will glide down in lifters and try to penetrate the vegetation. In either case, we’re to reach the surface any way we can. Depending on what happens to each group, the rest of the legion will choose the better option for further drops.”

I left the briefing with a slightly queasy feeling in my stomach. I told myself it wasn’t fear—but, as I’ve said, I can be a terrible liar. Even to myself.

-10-

As we made our final approach to the strangely overgrown planet, Imperator Turov couldn’t resist the opportunity for one last speech while she still had her captive audience intact.

We were called to the module briefing area where our glorious leader was displayed on the far wall. The image had to be thirty feet high. Her dark eyes were a lovely almond-shaped, but they were disturbing at this level of magnification.

“Troops,” she said, addressing all of us. “I have a treat for all of you—Justice!”

The camera view switched to
Minotaur’s
tactical control room. I’d been in that chamber before and noticed it hadn’t changed much. There were two primary operators who both had to engage the firing system at the same time to arm the broadsides. As we watched, they checked the final targeting data and gave our hovering camera-drone the thumbs-up.

“We’ve located a source of emissions on the planet surface which doesn’t match any natural patterns,” Turov said on voice-over as we watched the gunners work their equipment. “We’ve picked up radio transmissions, heat, and other energy-release readings. This region on the southern coast of the central continent must contain their base.”

The camera shifted to an external view. We watched as the massive broadsides smoothly traversed and zeroed in. The big guns didn’t look like they were aiming right at the planet, but when you’re throwing fusion shells over a million kilometers, you had to take gravitational effects into account as everything began to curve.

“Locked on,” Turov’s voice announced.

A yellow, circular firing-reticle lit up on the planet. We were indeed aiming at the southern coast of the largest, central continent. Shrouded in clouds and covered in purplish-green vegetation, the continent was a big piece of land—maybe the size of Asia.

“And now, I’ll clue in our criminal friends concerning our intentions. They will bear witness to their punishment—even as we mete it out!”

A red box lit up on the screen, and the word
transmitting
appeared.

“Alien criminals,” Turov announced in an officious voice. “We have come to deliver justice to this world. Whether you know it or not, you’re within the boundaries of the Galactic Empire. We are local enforcers in this province. We will now annihilate you in recompense for your attack upon local shipping.”

We all watched, fascinated. Turov’s speech was making it more suspenseful, I had to admit. I wasn’t feeling any remorse for the enemy. This was their base. With any luck, the enemy raiding ship that had killed so many back home would be down there. We’d blast them all dead in one shot.

“We’re broadcasting this announcement to you using every known form of communication,” Turov continued talking to the unknown aliens, “including that of the Cephalopod Kingdom, just in case you’re allied with them. Let it be known that we do not take this action for reasons of anger and revenge. We’re merely applying the strict rule of Galactic Law to creatures that—”

Something happened then, and Turov stumbled in her speech. The screen, which depicted the planet as seen from our zoomed-in targeting systems,
changed
. It was a subtle change at first. A glimmer of shiny green appeared—not just at one spot but at a dozen of them all at once. They were objects, unknown ovoid contacts, appearing between
Minotaur
and the target world.

“What the hell are those things?” Carlos asked aloud.

I was his superior, and I should have cuffed him one, telling him to shut up during our top officer’s speech, but I didn’t. I was too dumb-struck and confused to do much of anything.

“I see there is a response,” Turov said, regaining her composure. “Crew, take defensive action. It will make no difference how they try to squirm away from their fate.”

Turov has always been long-winded. There’d been more than one occasion in our storied adventures together during which I’d wished she’d get on with the show. This time, like so many others, she decided to keep on talking.

“As I was saying, we take this action to correct a grave wrong inflicted upon us. After enduring your punishment, from which there is no escape, you must submit to the Empire and hope that they will be merciful. When the Nairb prefects eventually come here to see that justice is exercised properly, it’s possible those of you who have survived this day will be spared. I make no promises, but with appropriate supplication and an attitude of servile—”

The green things, which were shiny and kind of egg-shaped, took action again. Instead of hanging around
Minotaur
, they plunged toward it.

Intercepting fire from a dozen point-defense cannons blazed orange sparks out from our dreadnaught to meet these incoming green eggs. They popped and burned—but more and more appeared behind them.

“We’re under attack,” Turov said irritably. I could tell she was annoyed that the enemy had managed to cut off her speech, which was just winding up to its climax. When she spoke again, her words came a little more quickly. “In conclusion, I say this to those who are about to be crushed: you’re on the wrong track. The road to total destruction is paved by resistance. You will learn this lesson now. Weaponeers, fire the broadsides!”

The view from outside the ship disappeared as the blast-shields rolled into place and clammed shut. Then, the broadsides spoke at last.

Having been aboard dreadnaughts before when they unleashed the power of their primary weapons, I knew to brace myself.

The deck bucked up with the tremendous release of energy. Plenty of my fellow troops either hadn’t known what to expect, or they’d forgotten. People were knocked to their knees or even onto their faces. The ship’s stabilizers fought to keep the vessel on an even keel and after shuddering with sickening after-shocks, the automated systems seemed to manage the task.

But the shivering didn’t subside completely. The ship was still rolling a little, quivering. It was as if we were releasing smaller projectiles, or…

“Those green pods,” Carlos said, climbing back to his feet. “They’re hitting us—right now! Landing on the hull!”

He was right. He had to be.

“Visors down,” I roared to my confused troops as they picked themselves up off the deck. “Weapons locked and loaded!”

“Listen up,” Graves said in my helmet. He’d engaged the unit-wide channel so I didn’t have to relay his instructions: “We’ve been hit by unknown objects. They’re sticking to the hull. We don’t know anything more, but in case this is a boarding attempt, we’re to report to the rim outside Blue Deck.”

The “rim” was a region between two heavy hulls. The inner hull of the ship had an empty pocket between it and the outer skin. I hadn’t spent much time in that region of the ship, except for a few training drills, but I was game for something new today.

“Stay together, squad,” I ordered. “Follow me!”

Rifles in our hands, we clanked for the exit. On the big forward screen, I caught a final glimpse of Galina Turov. She looked pissed off—and maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit scared. Her haughty pronouncement of doom had been transformed into a battle by an enemy who appeared to be more cunning than she’d thought.

I wasn’t any happier about that than she was. As I trotted through passages full of yellow flashers and blaring alarms, I couldn’t help but wonder how this was going to go down. After all, it seemed to me that this enemy, whoever they were, had been at least one jump ahead of us every step of the way.

They’d shown up in our skies back on Earth, stolen part of a vital cargo from an Earth freighter, and managed to send the freighter crashing down into the middle of two assembled legions. Today, what had appeared to be a desperate attempt to escape our fleet had instead transformed into a trap to ensnare us.

The knowledge that our broadsides had already fired on them gave me some solace, however. The enemy may have miscalculated on that score. Those shells were arcing toward their base, and as far as I knew, they were unstoppable.

“That had to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen Turov do,” Carlos said inside my headset on a private channel, “and I’ve seen them all.”

I didn’t really have time to talk to Carlos, but he had me curious with that statement. “What do you mean, Specialist?”

Carlos was my squad’s resident medic on this mission. A bio specialist of the lowest grade, he’d been assigned to our combat unit to patch us up. On the surface of things, that sounded logical enough. He had good fighting skills, and I was pretty sure they’d tested him and determined that he would suck at any other function a bio normally performed. I couldn’t easily imagine him running the revival machines, performing surgery, or even providing long-term care for the moderately wounded.

Because of this, embedding him in a combat unit as a medic seemed to be a no-brainer, but I had my reservations. I didn’t relish being patched up by my old friend, despite his new stripes and training.

All that said, I still wanted to know what he was thinking about Turov.

“I mean that she broadcast some long speech at the aliens instead of just firing on them,” he explained. “That was a mistake. Maybe they didn’t even know we were hostile. Maybe they weren’t sure where we were in space. We probably had the element of surprise going in, but
noooo
, she had to go and make a speech and blow all that.”

“You might be right,” I admitted, “but what’s done is done. We have orders. Let’s follow them.”

I cut off his channel and opened my squad chat. “All right, listen up. I want everyone looking sharp when we come through this hatch into the rim. Remember that there’s no pressure in there. Not much in the way of gravity, either. Turn on your magnetics and keep buttoned up. Look around for anything like a breach, and sound off if you see anything.”

We reached the hatch, and I opened it after taking a breath. A whoosh of escaping gas rushed past me like a small storm. There was an airlock, but it wasn’t an efficient one with pumps and pressure-equalizers. All it did was limit the amount of air it farted out when you opened the side that led into vacuum.

We rushed into the airlock and sealed the hatch behind us. The whole squad fit—just barely. Harris’ squad was next in line to go through, and they watched us with grim expressions and tight grips on their weapons. We swung the second, massive hatch open which released a gush of air into the rim between the hulls.

In between the two hulls were the ribs of the ship. These titanium bones ran beyond the limits of our sight, above and below us. Each rib wrapped around the belly of the ship. They were huge, imposing, and curved with the ship’s contours.

“Tactics, vet?” Sargon asked me. “With my belcher, I mean?”

“Use your weapon as you see fit, weaponeer,” I said. “This area is kind of tight—only about ten meters between the hulls with lots of structural girders and the like. We’ll be on patrol, but you never know when you’ll run into a surprise.”

I saw him cranking his weapon aperture to a medium setting. I approved. It’s what I would have done. Widening the muzzle a bit turned his weapon into a shotgun rather than a rifle, but without making it as broad and uncontrollable as a fire hose. I’d spent years as a weaponeer myself, and when I didn’t know what I was going to be aiming at in a tight space, I broadened the scope so I would at least make sure I didn’t miss.

Off toward the stern was another knot of troops. My HUD told me it was the third squad from my platoon. Adjunct Leeson had seen fit to fight with them instead of with me, and that was just fine in my book. Sometimes, an officer in your midst on a patrol mission could be more of a hindrance than a help.

We moved as a squad to the location that Graves had pinpointed on my tactical display. The position was depicted both inside my helmet and on my tapper. When we reached our post, we dispersed taking what cover we could, and latched our clamps and cords onto the girders. Then, we waited.

The waiting was far from peaceful. The ship often vented gases into the rim—blasts of unknown origin that equalized pressure from inside the ship into this no-man’s land in-between the hulls. The ship also lurched and wallowed at random intervals. I knew the pilots were trying to maneuver and avoid danger. I could only hope they were being successful.

“Unit,” Graves said several long minutes later. “We’ve got word from Gold Deck: we’re to expect boarders. Repeat, the hull is being breached in a dozen spots. At first, they clustered their attempts to penetrate near the jacket that encircles the engine core. That was too thick for them, apparently, and they’ve shifted tactics. They’re now attempting entry all over the outer hull looking for the thin spots. It won’t be hard for them to find a weak point.”

A single question was burning in my mind, and I took this opportunity to ask it. “How are they getting in, sir? How can they drill through even a single meter of titanium that fast?”

“They aren’t drilling,” he said. “The word is they’re using concentrated acid. The shielding around the core was dense and full of lead. But the rest of the skin is relatively thin. The acid is eating holes in
Minotaur
like a hot flame applied to wax.”

Acid?
I gave my head a shake. The enemy had an acid that ate metal like nothing? How had they gotten it up here in sufficient quantities? And what were those shiny green egg-things, anyway? Pods full of acid?