Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova. (18 page)

The second part
of the plan, setting off the nukes underneath the sallying humans, did not go
off as planned, since the triggers on all of the weapons had been rendered
inoperable.  Which brought into action part three of the plan, which had not
been planned to be triggered until after the bombs had gone off.

The guerillas
carried weapons that would have decimated the regular forces of their enemies. 
Rocket launchers, mortars, even some experimental laser weaponry that they hoped
might do the job on Imperial Marines.

*     *     *

Colonel Thomas
Margolis preferred to run the battle from the air, halfway between the ships in
space and his troopers on the ground.  The Colonel flew in the copilot’s seat
of a modified troop transport that was equipped with fifty percent more counter
missile capability than his other transports.  The troop compartment to the
back had also been modified, with spaces for eight Marine specialists who
monitored communications to and from the flagship and between the ground units.

The holo over
the front panel showed the Colonel everything that was going on in the sector
he was currently monitoring.  The red of enemy units showed among the buildings
of cities, the outlands of landing fields, the underground of factories and
plants.  The enemy probably didn’t even know they were being monitored so
thoroughly.  The Colonel couldn’t get an exact count of each enemy unit, but he
was very confident in the ballpark figures.

Flying through
the air were mixed units of sting ships and transports, along with Marines in
heavy battle armor airborne on their own.  Each of the sting ships carried
lasers, particle beams, missiles and grenades, and were essentially ground
support craft.  The transports were also armed, in fact more heavily than the
sting ships, though they also made much bigger targets.  Each carried a crew of
four, pilot, co and two gunners, as well as fifteen Naval Landing Force and
Marine personnel in medium armor.  Right now they were orbiting on station,
waiting to be sent into the attack.

Other icons
showed units that were already on the ground, in many cases in the perfect
ambush positions.  Those who were not, who had been placed improperly for some
reason or other, were on the move, staying low to the ground with full stealth
activated.

*     *     *

Cargol Marzon
was the leader of one of the strike teams.  Five hundred men, all followers of
the God Hrrottha, all willing to martyr themselves for the glory of their
deity.  He really couldn’t understand how anyone could be an unbeliever, and
willingly ignore the scriptures of the one true God. 
They will pay for
their apostasy, while we assure ourselves of eternal reward.

Cargol checked
with his brothers, who were also leading teams in the same area, looking
through their eyes, hearing through their ears.  Their connection allowed them
to move their
Regiment
in a coordinated fashion, no matter what kind of
jamming the humans used.

We’re taking
fire
, sent Zergol, one of his brothers.

Humans?
asked Cargol, knowing it wasn’t as soon as the impressions came across from his
brother.  That team was taking small arms fire of the type used by Tsarzorian
infantry, or possibly police.  They were driving into the center of the small
port city that supported a landing field that was being used by the humans. 
Cargol’s team was making for that landing field, and they were heavy with
anti-air and anti-armor missiles to hit the aliens with, if they made an
appearance.

We should be
able to flank them
, sent his brother, and another of the siblings sent that
he would support by moving into the rear of the enemy position.

Something moved
through the air above Zergol’s team.  They couldn’t see it, but they could feel
the air moving. 
It’s invisible
, shouted his brother in his mind.

Scores of men
fired missiles in the general direction of the craft, hoping to get a hit with
numbers.  Most of the warheads detonated before they had gotten halfway there,
and men with the launchers started flaring into fire or blowing apart as invisible
beams of heat, or angry red buzzing lines, connected the invisible object with
the guerillas.  Other, things, came streaking in, hitting the ground, exploding
and blowing guerillas into the air in pieces.

“Retreat,”
yelled his brother, just before the connection died, and Cargol could feel the
death of his sibling through the cutting of the link.

The leader
screamed at the death of someone he had been connected to intimately his entire
life.  His other brothers screamed as well, until another of them dropped off
the connection to double the shock.  And then it was his turn, as more fire
came ripping in from seemingly nowhere.

*     *     *

Each of the
transports was stealthy in a way that the Klassekians couldn’t even
comprehend.  The light bending field, while not perfect, was close, especially
in a confusing combat environment.  They absorbed radar and lidar, and
according to the missile sensor heads it was not there.  Its one weakness was
the amount of heat it put out, which, while nowhere near that of a jet aircraft
such as used by the natives, still made it a target of infrared seeking
warheads.  The only real problem from the attackers’ perspective was that was
each gunship also had active defenses, lasers and particle beams that tracked,
locked and fired in a time span so short that most heat seekers shot at it were
gone before they got halfway to the target.  Added to that were the dozen small
drones that circled the transport at all times, giving off their own heat
signatures in bursts that were bound to lure anything away that was looking for
the greatest heat source.

Their own active
sensor systems could track scores of fast moving objects at once, while the
laser rings built into nose and tail could put megawatts of energy out to
destroy those objects.  The rings, as well as the nose mounted particle beams,
could be controlled by the copilot, who was also the weapons officer.  Against
weapons of comparable technology the defenses were effective enough to stop
most threats until they reached saturation level.  Against the technologies of
this world, it wasn’t even close.  And then there were the two naval ratings
who sat behind the piloting team, with the ancient designation of
door
gunners
.

Of course, they
did not hang out the open doors of the transports, which were kept closed in
flight, and were in fact fused into the rest of the armored hull by nanotech. 
They sat in comfortable chairs, their suits plugged into the craft, monitoring
the quadruple turrets, two above and two below the hull, that were the primary
offensive weapons of the craft.  Each turret mounted a powerful gamma ray
laser, a particle beam and a grenade launcher.  Port and starboard side had
firing arcs of up to two hundred and seventy degrees, depending on the
orientation of the turret on the other side.  Working in concert, the four
turrets gave each craft coverage around the entire sphere surrounding.

Now the half
dozen craft in the air over this battle turned and juked, bringing all weapons
to bear, allowing arrays to switch out and cool down while other beams ripped
through the guerillas below.  Those Klassekians fired back, of course, their
missiles exploding well before they reached their targets, their heavy weapon
fired projectiles bouncing from the hard battle steel armor of the transports.

Here and there
the sting ships dove in to hit larger concentrations of guerillas with rockets,
blasting bodies into the air, ripping through the heavier buildings that were
sheltering those lucky enough to make it into what they thought was shelter.

It wasn’t long
before the guerrilla assault foundered, and every man who survived, no matter
how fanatical, could only think of saving himself.  Being guerillas, they
thought to ditch their weapons and pull on other garments, blending back into
the populace.  Two things got in the way.  First, there were no bystanders. 
Everyone had either retreated into buildings and gotten off the streets, or
evacuated the city.  And second, every guerilla, whether he knew it or not, had
been tagged with nanites launched from the transports and sting ships.  Moments
after jettisoning weapons and pulling on disguises, most were facing battle
armored Marines and spacers who had no trouble rounding them up.  If they
attempted to escape or resist, they were shot down, plain and simple.

Chapter Fifteen

Sometimes the only way you learn
is by being hit, and hit hard.

Statement by unknown Imperial
Marine Sergeant.

“They’re
launching,” called out the rating who was monitoring the continent that Honish
occupied.  “ICBMs rising from their missile fields.”

“We’re also
picking up missiles rising from the water along their coasts,” called out
another Petty Officer.

A score of heavy
assault shuttles were dropping into the atmosphere from above, headed for
trouble spots that had sprung up.  The enemy missiles were mostly aimed at
knocking those shuttles out of the sky.  Shuttles were tough, but, especially
in atmosphere, they could be knocked for a loop by multi-megaton warheads
exploding in close proximity.  A direct hit could not be ruled out, and in that
case the shuttle and its passengers and crew were gone.

“Weapons free,”
called out the Admiral over the com.  “All tactical officers of all ships.  You
are free to launch.  Take those missiles out, people.  And make sure they can’t
follow them up with others.”

On the battle
cruiser, light cruiser and destroyer in orbit around the planet, tactical
departments looked to their assigned sectors and the computer generated
priority lists.  They had moments to look over those lists, pointing to screens
and selecting targets for the first firing solutions, which were generated on
the spot and fed to tactical screens, as well as the central holos of the
ships, where commanding officers could check and verify the priorities.

Laser rings
moved their grav lenses over the surface of the weapon as the emitters fed
photons into the assembly until they reached capacity.  The rings could fire a
hundred beams each at a time, though none of those beams were very powerful,
about what a heavy tank could put out.  Or they could fire a score of more
powerful beams, or a couple really strong ones.  Or one, capable of punching
through heavy electromag cold plasma fields and strong armor.  At this time
they were going for the middle solution, and each ring constructed a score of
gravity lenses that moved along the surface, which was now configuring itself
to change the frequencies of the photons passing through.  On the
Boudeuse
the selected frequency was x-rays, capable of penetrating the cloud cover of
the planet and striking at objects deep in the atmosphere.

Missiles started
to explode like insects hitting an electric bug killer, blowing apart in
mid-flight, or just after they left the launching pad.   None of them went
nuclear.  The heat pushed into them by the lasers exploded both the fuel of the
missiles and the explosives that were packed around fissionable materials that
made up the warheads.  Only a precisely timed explosion could compress the
materials enough to cause fission, and the lasers caused the explosives to
blast in a single direction.

In minutes all
the weapons in the air were gone, and the ships’ second response started
working on keeping more from getting into the air.

Each was capable
of dropping a score of kinetic warheads in a many seconds, then again after a
ten second reload period.  The weapons were little more than solid metal
teardrops, massing from ten kilograms to a ton.  All carried one or two small
grabber wings, and enough in the way of crystal matrix batteries, to boost them
downward at ten thousand gravities for a little less than a second.  The size
of the weapon, the altitude of the drop, and the setting of the grabbers, were
all calculated to yield the desired force, from thousands of tons to a score of
megatons.

The first
targets were the missile fields and submarines, locations it was thought more
missiles could be launched from.  The missile fields, the last known plots of
submarines, mobile launchers were all hit.  The missile fields were easy, even
if it was unknown if they still held missiles.  The bright pinpoints of kinetic
strikes flared on the fields and the penetrators put a good portion of their
energy into the earth, collapsing silos, annihilating control rooms.  Some
submarines, those closest to the surface, took direct hits, blasting the hulls
into thousands of pieces, many thrown from the water to arc kilometers away and
fall back in.   Others, deeper down, were killed by the water overpressure of
the strikes rupturing their hulls.

“Jamming is
increasing,” called out the EW Officer.  “We’re isolating the broadcast sites
for overload.”

“Any problems
with our own sensor returns or coms?” asked Nguyen, tapping a finger on his
chair arm.

“Not so far,
sir,” replied the EW Officer.  “They’ll have to generate a lot more static to
have any kind of effect on us.  About the only thing they’re accomplishing is
letting us know where they are.”

This is
almost too easy
, thought the Admiral, his eyes sweeping the chamber and
taking note of all the people fighting the battle from their seats. 
Like
stomping on ants
.  He dismissed that thought as arrogant as soon as it
came.  They totally outclassed the Klassekians.  But that didn’t mean the
aliens couldn’t sting back, and he was sure he would have some casualties
before the day was out.

“We have the
First Councilman of Tsarzor on the com,” called out the Com Officer.

Nguyen ordered
the com link to his repeater screen, preferring to keep the holos configured as
they were.  “First Councilman.  What can I do for you?”

“We’re being hit
in almost all of our cities, Admiral.  And my command center is telling me that
Honish is launching missiles at your shuttles, and maybe some other targets. 
What’s going on, Admiral?”

“It seems your
good neighbors have decided to send us a message,” said Nguyen, watching as
more objects rose from the oceans again, and a holo zoomed in to show what
looked like  large warship cycling cruise missiles.  “Excuse me for a moment,
First Councilman,” he told the leader, and put the com link on hold.

“Send a message
to those ships,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at his Flag Com Officer. 
“Tell them we will sink any vessel that launches any kind of missile.”

He looked over
at his Tactical Officer.  “I want every one of those ships that have already
launched sunk.”

Nguyen brought
back up the com to the First Councilman.  “We are taking care of the problem.”

“Do you want us
to fire back at the Honish?”

“I do not want
you under any circumstances to fire on their territory or military units at
sea.  We will handle that, and I don’t want there to be any confusion about
whose weapons we are tracking.” 
And I would hate to have to hit your
fields, by error or otherwise.
  “Fight back against the guerillas or
terrorists on your own lands, but make damned sure all of your forces are in
uniform.  I would also hate to have any friendly fire situations.”

“What about our
missions in Honish and its allies?  Trade missions, embassies?”

“Leave that to
us,” he told the leader, who seemed to be on the verge of a panic.  “I’m passing
you over to our liaison officer, and some of my people will be coordinating
with yours to integrate our responses.”

Nguyen
terminated the com, then looked back at the tactical holo.  “So, we’re getting
more launches from ships, and what are those in that desert area?”

“We think those
are mobile launchers,” said the Tactical Officer.  “They’re firing a missile or
two, then abandoning their launchers.”

“Do we have
profiles on those vehicles?” asked the Admiral, knowing that targeting them
after they launched was really accomplishing nothing.

Thousands of
micro-satellites, ships’ sensors, and microprobes flying through the atmosphere
were searching the land masses of the Honish continent, and now they
concentrated on that desert region and looked for any signs of artificial
constructs.  That information was fed into the computers of the battle cruiser,
which parsed the data and selected targets.  Moments later lasers and particle
beams came down from the sky.  Some hit old wrecks, garbage piles, the tents of
nomads.  Empty launch vehicles were also hit, their fuel tanks blasting them
into the air.  But many of them hit vehicles that were still carrying weapons,
and even larger fireballs rose into the air.

“Where the hell
are they getting all of these weapons?” asked Captain Susan Lee, walking to
stand beside the Admiral’s chair.

“They’ve had
almost six months to build more,” said Nguyen, himself surprised at the number
of missiles being launched.  “That society has a large military industrial
complex, and they must have cranked it up to full capacity.”

“We still should
have caught on to something going on,” said Lee, crossing her arms over her
chest.  “That’s inexcusable.”

It is
,
agreed the Admiral. 
But those people have been doing things in secret, with
an enemy with all the motivation in the world to try and uncover those
secrets.  That included weapons development and production.

“We need to
commit more resources to intelligence,” said the Chief of Staff.  “I know we
need to focus on the evacuation, but crap like this is going to hurt our
efforts in the long run even more than lack of hulls.”

Nguyen thought
about that for a moment.  He wasn’t sure of that conclusion.  Without the
hulls, they couldn’t move the Klassekians to other systems.  The Admiral sat and
looked around the large room, at all of the officers and ratings, manning their
stations, in communication with other ships, shuttles, ground forces, swinging
the hammer that was made up of those elements. “We are doing what we need to do
at the moment, Susan.  After this day is over, Honish will no longer have the
means to strike at us.”

“There will
still be terrorists, guerillas, people ready to strike from the shadows.”

“Of course there
will be.  And we’ll just have to be aware of them, and take operational
security seriously.”

“We’re still
tracking launches from warships,” called out the Tactical Officer.

Nguyen slammed
his fist down on his chair arm. 
When will these people ever learn. 
“Broadcast
one warning to all Honish and allied vessels.”  The Com Officer looked over at
him with the question on her face.  “Tell them they have five minutes to
abandon ship, every single one of them.  After that time period, we will sink
every single one of the mothers.”

“All Marines and
Naval landing personnel are down now, sir,” said the Marine Liaison Officer
from his station, flanked by two NCOs.

“Initiate
Operation Air Control,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at another naval
officer, this one, along with his contingent of ratings, controlling all
atmospheric fighters that were floating in the high atmosphere in stealth mode,
waiting for the order.

There was only
one squadron of the craft, the one that had been aboard
HIMS Boudeuse
. 
The other squadron had been aboard
Challenger
, and were wherever that
ship happened to be.  The twelve craft that were available would normally be
deployed in teams of two, but, due to the limited number of aircraft and the
airspace to be covered, they were patrolling in lone units.

Every aerial
vehicle in Honish airspace had been located and categorized, tracked and
prioritized.  About half of them were civilian aircraft, or so it seemed, and
no action was taken against them until information came in that proved they
were otherwise.  The other half were military craft, mostly fighters, some
bombers, and the F231 attack fighters went after them like hawks after doves.

Each was capable
of a hundred gravities acceleration, their inertial compensators capable of
taking up all the gee forces before they reached their pilots.  The craft were
invisible to visual and most sensor systems, though they radiated a large
quantity of heat, both from friction with the atmosphere, and from inertia
converted to heat and dumped through the grabber units.  They possessed
defenses similar to those of the transports, and it would take a saturation
attack to breach those defenses, or so it would seem.

“What the hell?”
called out one of the ratings on fighter control.

“What’s going
on?” called out the Admiral, pulling up the scanner on his side viewer, and
hissing as he saw the F231 falling through the air, breaking up.

“What happen?”

“Sir,” said the
rating, turning to look at him.  “A squadron of the enemy aircraft all ripple
fired missiles at once.  They came in at Mach thirty, and four got through to
hit our fighter.”

“We’re analyzing
the attack,” called out the Air Control Officer.  “But it looks like the enemy
aircraft fired a very large missile that accelerated at three hundred
gravities.  The warhead was in the hundred kilo range, and the four that hit
broke our fighter in two.”

“It looks like
they’ve advanced some through contact with us,” said Lee, staring at another
screen that was showing an animation of the attack.

And a moment
ago I was patting myself on the back on how we were going to destroy the Honish
force with little or no loss to ourselves
, thought Nguyen.

“We’ve lost
another one,” called out the Air Control Officer.

“Send order to
all aircraft to keep their distance,” Nguyen ordered the officer.  “Concentrate
on squadron formations with ship based weapons.  Our aircraft can stay in the
distance, and attack any enemy that breaks formation.”

The Admiral
called up his own casualty figures on a side screen as the battle raged on. 
His losses were still light, less than fifty personnel, many of them
recoverable.  The enemy losses had to already be in the tens of thousands, and
he had hoped they would break as a fighting force and flee.  But more guerilla
units were coming out of cover, many from cells that they had known nothing
about.