Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) (30 page)

“I’m not in the
combat suit now, asshole,” she said, staring into the man’s eyes.

Koveleski stared
back for a few moments, then dropped his eyes and started back to the line.

“You can get in
the very back of the line,” yelled Stella, pointing toward the last of the
people in this particular column, several hundred meters back into the camp.

“That’s, not
fair.”

“Just like it’s
not fair that a big man tossed a small woman aside so his cowardly ass could
get off world,” she replied.  “Now you can either get at the end of the
line, or you can refuse to get in the line, and the line will grow longer
without you.  The choice is yours.”

The man looked
back, hesitating.  A loud boom sounded, something exploding in the
distance, and the man made up his mind, walking quickly to the end of the line,
looking back every couple of steps with sullen a look on his face.

Bastard
,
thought Artois, walking back to her suit, backing into it and letting it close
up around her.  She looked at the other people in the line that was moving
forward as quickly as they could handle them down below.  All were scared,
with the fear of people who just hours before had no hope, and now having some
were afraid they might lose it again.

And in many ways
these were the lucky ones, who only had to trudge a short distance through the
camp before they were evacuated, unlike those who had to walk the kilometers
into the mountains and go through those caverns to get off this world.

We need more
people to help organize this shit
, she thought again as she stepped off in
her suit. 
I know we have other priorities here, but dammit, we came
here to get these people off alive, and if we fail in that, we might have well
have not come.

*    
*     *

Cat Jeffries
thought she knew the camp well.  After all, she had spent months here,
navigating through the well laid out rows of tents.  She knew it as well
as anyone.  What she wasn’t used to was navigating the area with all the
people flowing like a flood toward the edge of the camp.  A lot of the
tents had been pulled down, trampled, new paths made through the rectangular
blocks.  The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, along with the odor of burnt
flesh.  The after effects of the bombs that had dropped on the camp over
an hour before.

Now, whenever
anything overflew the camp, or they even heard the sound of something fast
moving cleaving the air, she cringed and looked for a place to dive for cover,
just like everyone else around her.  Not that there was any place that
would protect her from fire bombs, or even worse, nukes.

Cat pushed
between a couple of adults.  One started to yell at her before he saw that
she was just a kid, but still made a comment about where her parents
were. 
They’re Caca shit, asshole
, thought Cat as she glanced back
at the man.  The next pair she pushed between acted a little more
violently, one trying to grab Cat by the shirt, getting a couple of fingers on
the fabric and pulling.  The child twisted in the grasp and got her teeth
on the hand, biting down.

Is that the
edge of the camp
, she thought, looking at the two soldiers that stood by a
break in a fence.  They were giving civilians bottles of water, one
handing out the containers while another was pulling more out of a large cart
that was sitting on the ground behind him.  Cat could see that the cart
had floater units on the sides, and she figured the soldiers had brought the
wagon here from off world.  The child accepted a bottle of liquid, then
reached onto a table that had a line of nutrition bars.  Everyone going by
was grabbing one, and Cat wondered if there would be enough for all of
them.  Everyone was starving, and all would need the calories to keep
going.

And then she was
out of the camp, walking on the ground that had meant death to walk upon just
that morning.  She looked over at the nearest tower to the opening, or,
she amended in her mind, the remains of that tower.   All that
remained were the supports and one small section of the wall that had made up
the guard post.   She could smell the odor of burnt materials, along
with the cloying odor of something rotting in the heat of the sun. 
Couldn’t
think of a better asshole for it to happen to
, she thought, realizing that
the smell was from the remains of the guard.

“Keep moving,”
said one of the soldiers beyond the fence.  “Follow the people ahead of
you, and don’t deviate from the course.  The mines have all been
deactivated along this path and for twenty meters to each side.  Though we
went over the entire field, we cannot guarantee there are no mines off the
swept area, so do not chance it.”

The soldier
repeated the warning in Russian, for those who might not understand
English.  While the overwhelming majority of the people in the Kingdom
spoke the Teranglo that was the linguae franca of the Empire, there was a small
minority that only spoke the Russian that was the official language of New
Moscow.

It was hot as
hell out, now that it was getting near to noon.  There was a line of
thunderheads to the east, a sign that things were going to cool down, but at
the cost of everyone getting soaked.  Thunder crackled in the distance, or
did it?  Cat stared at those clouds as she moved with the line, wondering
if the noise was really thunder, or something else.

A couple of
large vehicles sped by to the west of the line, skimming above the ground on
their lift units.  Cat couldn’t remember what they were called, only that
they provided lift and propulsion without reaction mass.  She couldn’t
guess what was in those vehicles, until a couple of lift carts flew by with a
suited soldier in the front guiding it.  People sat or lay in the
back.  People who didn’t look very healthy, more malnourished than most,
some bandaged from injuries.  She envied those people for a moment, until
she thought of having to wait for a space wherever they had to wait. 
No
thanks
, she thought.  She would rather walk on her own two feet toward
the gate that would get her off the planet.  At least that way she had
some control over the situation.

There was the
angry buzzing that had most of the people looking in alarm to the east. 
An angry red beam connected from that direction, hitting the line of people up
ahead.  A dozen civilians basically exploded as the beam touched them, and
earth flew into the air as the death ray swept along.  Everyone hit the
dirt, trying to get what cover they could, and another beam came in and
scorched the backs and clothes of some of those people, not really hitting
them, but still putting enough energy into them to cause series injury.

Cat heard more
of those beams, with a slightly different sound, and she rolled over to look at
the west, to see more beams connecting a line of soldiers with something she
couldn’t see.

“Everyone stay
down,” shouted one of the soldiers.  “Stay down, and we’ll get you moving
as fast as we can.”

Some suited
soldiers flew low to the people who had been burned and started treating
them.  Moments later the sounds of explosions erupted to the east. 
Cat continued to lay there and watch, seeing the blast of dirt from
misses.  Some more beams came flying over the line of refugees, and it was
obvious to her that they were not the primary targets here.  Just as it
was obvious that if the Cacas broke through that line of soldiers, the
civilians would be next.

*    
*     *

“Here they
come,” yelled one of the forward observers, his suit rising into the air as he
flew in a crouch back toward the line, staying centimeters from the
ground.  The Ranger dodged back and forth as he flew, dodging a couple of
beams that tried to take him out of the air.

Walborski looked
at the tactical display on his HUD that showed about four hundred Caca soldiers
heading his way.  They were moving fast, over a hundred kilometers an
hour.  He knew they had to be flying, which was unusual for Cacas. 
While their suits had flight capabilities, they never seemed to be that good at
maneuvering them.  And they made very large targets in the air. 
Along with them were a dozen tanks.  Not mecha this time, but real
tanks.  His company sensor array was showing him that those tanks were in
the six hundred ton range, much smaller than the heavies he had, even if there
were only four of them.

“Prepare to open
fire,” he said into the com, assigning targets over his tactical system.

The holographic
projectors were down for the moment, the Captain not wanting to show the enemy
where his lines were, though they probably had a good idea.

“Incoming,”
shouted out one of the tank commanders.  The tanks were monitoring their
own sensor net, which included drones that were in the air above the
line.  Now their sensors were showing hundreds of rounds in the air, most
of them arcing like artillery, though there was a mix of low flying attack
drones.

“Take them out,”
called Cornelius to his own men.  Unfortunately, that would show the enemy
where they were, unless.  “Bring all deception systems online, now.”

The jammers went
to full power, blasting out their electronic signals to cover what the suits
and vehicles were putting out.  The holographic projectors sent out images
on dummy positions, just what the approaching troops would see themselves,
while the real positions were hidden under three dimensional window dressing. 
And the exterior electromagnetic field generators, big cylinders interspersed
along the line, also came on.

“Fire mission,”
said Cornelius over the com.  “Suppressive and counter battery.”  He
sent the information over the com to the fire control center that had been set
up in the mountains, who would relay the information to the three batteries of
artillery that were set up within range of Cornelius' defensive position. 
What he got back was not what he wanted to hear.

“We can give you
two tubes and a rocket launcher right now, sir,” came the reply from the tech
manning the com net.  “That’s all we can spare.”

Which means
we’re being attacked in other places
, thought Walborski, watching as the
heavy weapons suits that had been assigned to him launched their mortars,
throwing in some anti-drone missiles as well.

The enemy opened
fire at five hundred meters.  Hundreds of particle beams came ripping in
as explosives burst in the air, a few getting through to blast dirt into the
sky.  Some of the beams made it through their positions and hit the line
of civilians a couple of kilometers back.

Damn. 
Where in the hell were those engineers when we needed them
, thought the
Captain, trying to wait for the last second to open fire and give his positions
away.  He had requested that the engineers come in and dig positions two
kilometers farther out, in the interest of protecting the civilians. 
These positions would have become his fall back line.  Instead, he had
some hasty positions his unit could dig with their medium suits, even closer to
the civilians.

He heard some
panicked calls over the com net, soldiers further back screaming about particle
beams hitting the civilians.  That decided it, and he could wait no
longer.

“Fire,” he
yelled into the com, and every particle beam rifle, grenade launcher and tank
gun fired at the same instant.

Four of the
enemy tanks went up in fireballs before they could engage their own camouflage
routine.  Fifty or more troopers were burned out of the air, and the rest
landed and went low, going into prone and kneeling positions that would
minimize their profiles.

The fight went
on for over ten minutes, a long time for modern warfare.  At the end
Cornelius only had two of his supporting tanks left, and was missing
thirty-nine Rangers from his company.  Twenty-two killed and the rest
injured to the point where they had to be evacuated. Eighteen more were
wounded, but remained in their positions.

The Cacas, due
to being the attacker and being much larger targets, as well as having slightly
inferior combat suits, lost about half their attack force before they broke and
ran.   When the attack was over he sent another request to the
engineers, asking again for new positions to be dug.  This time they
listened, and within five minutes a platoon of heavy excavation suits were on
site and digging new positions two kilometers out, while Cornelius and his men
provided security.

 A short
time later some aircraft were tracked flying toward the camp.  Cornelius
prepared his men to add to the integrated air defense unit.  The six icons
appeared on everyone’s HUD, every vehicle screen, as they prepared to fire on
the aircraft, hopefully before they didn’t do too much damage.  The icons
swept closer, and Cornelius looked back at the line of Refugees moving again to
the mountains.

The aircraft
were coming in at under a thousand meters and dropping lower as he watched them
on his display.  The heading was to the southern part of the camp, so they
would be coming over his area.

“They look like ground
attack aircraft,” said the voice of the officer in charge of air defense.

No shit
,
thought Cornelius, bringing his own rifle online.

“Altitude, four
hundred meters, speed, four hundred kilometers an hour.”

They were
definitely on a ground attack mission, flying that low.  And while the
target wasn’t a sure thing, he was sure that the civilians would be in the
danger zone.

“Altitude, two
hundred meters, speed, two hundred kilometers an hour, range fifteen
kilometers.”

Those aren’t
attack craft
, thought Walborski as the contacts dropped completely off the
track. 
They’re transports.

Fourteen more
contacts appeared, following much the same path as the first.  Before they
disappeared the six original contacts came back on the plot.  As they flew
away another fourteen showed up.