Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour (54 page)

“Can you get them to run up a couple of hundred spare cells as well?”

“Can’t see why not,” Flowers said, bouncing the cell on his palm. “They might not be ready soon enough though.”

“The charger will do for tomorrow, but I’m sure we’ll need replacement cells some time in the next few weeks. They don’t recharge forever.”

“Good idea. I like forward thinking.”

Flowers left and James holstered his empty beamer. “If anyone is hungry, food is being served down the hall.” No one was interested. “We have a new charger on the way, and power cells to go with it. Armour will be supplied. We attack at sunrise tomorrow. The city will be ours again when it sets. My people will fight by your side to make it happen.”

That got a reaction. James smiled at the howls and yips coming from his men. They were more than ready to see the murderers of their people dead.

* * *

Zuleika and environs, Child of Harmony

WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

Colonel Flowers watched the city erupt for the second time as more fighters flew over. The sun was just coming up, and light amplification was no longer necessary. He deselected it and viewed the city at X4. There was fire; it was to be expected, there were falling buildings, also as expected. What wasn’t expected was the complete lack of return from the Merkiaari. Surely they had something to hit the fighters with? If they did there was no sign of it.

“It’s time,” Flowers said, and nodded to Stone.

“
Open fire!
” Stone roared at the top of his enhanced voice.

Twenty artillery pieces spoke as one on the instant, then again and again with a mere half second between firings. Rocket launchers began flushing their racks and scores of hellfire rockets flew skyward. Flowers tracked them by their vapour trails as they headed for targets in the city. More buildings were smashed. Clouds of smoke and dust billowed up and darkened the sky. The city was plunged into night by the black and stinking smoke.

“
Reload
!” Stone roared again.

Each of the self-propelled guns had a three unit team servicing it. The drivers had the least to do, but it was essential they be ready to drive in case the enemy targeted the battery. They only had so many of the guns with them, and any losses could prove devastating. The two remaining units worked the weapon itself. One man worked the controls to elevate the hot barrel a couple of degrees, while the other rushed to re-stock the gun’s autoloader with three 155mm HE contact fused rounds.

“
Fire!
”

Flowers ignored the thunder of his guns, and concentrated on evaluating their effectiveness. After each firing of three rounds, the guns were elevated, and fired again before repeating the cycle. He watched the line of explosions advancing into the city and was pleased. His men had learned their gunnery lessons well; everything was proceeding as planned.

“
Fire!
” Stone said with metronomic precision.

Dozens, and then hundreds of buildings were smashed. There was no help for it. When this day was over the city would need extensive work, but as Wilder’s people had already reminded them, killing the enemy was all that really mattered. Buildings could be replaced; lives could not.

“
Reload!
”

Flowers split his attention between his guns and TacNet. Alpha and Bravo were advancing behind the curtain of his artillery fire, and were fast approaching the cut off point. They reached it not two minutes later, and he nodded to Stone.

“
Cease firing!
”

“Now we wait,” Flowers said, and Stone nodded.

* * *

The streets of Zuleika, Child of Harmony

Cragg ducked as the artillery popped three rounds into a building just ahead. He waited a few seconds in case another three were on their way, but after a moment of relative silence, he decided he was in the clear. Whoever had called in the fire mission was apparently satisfied with the results.

“Clear,” he called to Hiller and dashed across the street into the building opposite.

He fired at the enemy troop in the doorway and it staggered back, but the wounds only seemed to make it mad. Cragg selected semi automatic despite the energy expenditure, and dove passed it keeping his rifle on target. As he hit the ground, his fire finally had an effect. The trooper went to his knees snarling at the pain. In frustration, Cragg jacked his grenade launcher and fired from where he lay prone.

WHUMP!

He sat up amid the smoking debris, and saw a pair of legs twitching nearby. Of the rest of the enemy troop, there was no sign.

“Ground floor secure,” Cragg reported over his comm, and stood to cover the ramp as the rest of First Squad burst in to join him. “I have two hostiles on the third floor, no others on sensors,” he said when Hiller looked the question at him.

“These bastards are hard to kill,” Gordon said kicking the severed legs. “The way we’re going we’ll need resupply soon.”

Hiller nodded. “I’ve already put in a request for more grenades along with the rest of the ammo and power cells.”

“Wouldn’t mind a couple more railguns, Sarge,” Cragg said. “They’re the only things these bastards don’t sneer at.”

“Yeah I know. We do what we can.” Hiller detailed two groups of three to take out the troopers hiding on the third floor and search the rest of the building.

Cragg stood guard at the ground floor entrance while the others cleared the upper floors. The battle was going quite well, albeit slowly, but then it should; they had all the advantages. With the navy’s hotshot pilots overhead, and the Colonel’s artillery ready whenever anyone called, they couldn’t lose… so long as their ammunition didn’t run out.

Zuleika was different to anything he had ever seen before. Unlike the Alliance, the Shan didn’t like building vertically. Most of the buildings were three stories or less, and tended to sprawl over a wide area. They didn’t cram them together either. Most of the building’s interior spaces were below ground. Zuleika was a huge city in terms of the area it covered, but he bet it had housed less than a quarter of the population that an Alliance city of similar size would have. It must be a psychological thing, or maybe a cultural one. The natives were different in a lot of ways, not just physically. For one thing, they seemed far happier living underground than a Human would be.

Cragg checked his sensors again. Alpha Company’s four platoons, with Bravo’s four in support, were herding the Merkiaari to a position where they could be killed on mass. The little beggars had scattered after the flyboys bombed their positions, and were making life difficult. House to house fighting was awkward and could be costly in a city this large, but so far his squad had suffered no casualties or injuries of note.

“Building secure,” Hiller announced over the comm.

Cragg prepared to go out the door by performing a sensor sweep. He found a splash of red on his sensors as he scanned in the direction of the push, but as he called up the city map to plot the best route, another red icon caught his attention.

“Jesus,” he hissed dropping to the floor, and hastily swinging his rifle back the way they had come. “Alpha One-Three, Alpha One-One. I have Merkiaari in the street and coming this way. I would appreciate it if you would come down and join the party.”

“How many?” Hiller said intently.

“A full squad and heavily armed. They must have circled around Second Squad.”

“We’re on the way. If you get a chance, contact Arty and call in a strike.”

“Copy.” With Hiller’s idea fresh in his mind, he called a satellite view of the city and noted the street’s location. “Alpha One-Three, fire mission.”

“Alpha One-Three, Artillery Control. Say coordinates,” Colonel Flowers said instantly.

“Grid G-six sub-grid Gamma-eight.”

“On the way.”

Cragg waited a few seconds, and then ducked as explosions dotted the street. “Artillery Control, Alpha One-Three. Right on the money, sir. Pour it on.”

“Artillery Control copies.”

With those simple words, the street turned into a hell of flying concrete and crashing buildings. Round after round came in and wiped the Merki squad out.

“Artillery Control, Alpha One-Three. Target destroyed.”

“Copy.”

A last wave of explosions erupted, adding to the destruction before relative silence fell. There were still explosions going on, indicating a firefight somewhere, but his sector was quiet and free of hostiles. As Cragg rose to his feet and began scouting the way for his squad, he absently wondered what had happened to Second Squad.

* * *

“That should damn well never have happened,” Gina snarled angrily.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Wevers said shamefaced. “They must have stayed low while we cleared the others out.”

Gina relented a little; she always found it hard to remain angry with her people. She was too concerned with their welfare to go beyond a simple chewing out.

“We have sensors, Gwen. Use them!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wevers said, blushing in humiliation.

“On your way.”

Gina watched Gwen rejoin her squad and turned back to James. He had done well so far. The resistance couldn’t keep up with a viper at full speed of course, but when weight of fire came into its own, James and his people helped supply it. He was a strange man. She watched him chatting and laughing with a Shan female in her own language, and wondered where a professor of palaeontology got the guts to face down Merkiaari. She had watched him stand with her people as the building they were in came apart around them, and fire both his beamers into the advancing troopers. Perhaps it was his knowledge of the last Merki War. He was an historian as well as a palaeontologist. Maybe he saw history repeating and wanted to help stop it. Whatever the reason, he would have made a good Lt—was in fact one already, though no lieutenant she had heard of had ever commanded three hundred aliens.

“She looks embarrassed,” James said, as Gina approached him.

“She should be.” Gina’s mood suddenly plummeted. “Merki are damn dangerous—even more so now than before. That group could have killed Hiller’s entire squad.”

“But they didn’t,” James reminded her. “Hiller saw them coming.”

“Yeah. You’re right. At least Hiller had someone watching the street.”

“I’m sure Ms Wevers has learned her lesson.”

“
Sergeant
Wevers better had. We should have the Merkiaari where we want them pretty soon.”

“And where precisely is that?”

“A large structure at the centre of the city.”

James nodded. “The Markan’deya. It’s where Shan teach their children of the Great Harmony—like a museum.”

Gina wished he hadn’t told her that. The museum was unlikely to be still standing in a few hours. “The museum is central…”

“That’s right. They built it at the centre of their city, as harmony is at the centre of what it is to be Shan, or rather what it
was
to be Shan.”

“Professor,” she said warningly. “I’m not one of your students, please don’t lecture me… and don’t interrupt.”

James aborted what he was going to say and grinned. “Sorry.”

“We’re pushing them from all sides now,” Gina went on, ignoring the twinkle in his eyes. “They will have no choice but to make a stand. When they do, we call in the flyboys and finish them.” James remained silent and she sighed. “What do you think?”

“I think the sooner the better. The Markan’deya can be rebuilt, Gina. The city is a mess anyway. Get the damn Merkiaari off the planet so my friends can get back to living.”

“I plan to,” Gina said, and turned back to the war.

* * *

The Markan’deya, Zuleika, Child of Harmony.

The Markan’deya was a huge domed building with many entrances and windows. Its natural stone façade sparkled golden in the sunlight like all the buildings, due to the heavy concentration of pyrite in the local stone, but for all of that, it was designed quite unlike any other structure in Zuleika. It was perfectly round with tall intricately carved pillars standing like sentinels either side of the entrances. The windows were tall narrow things, perhaps designed to let lots of natural sunlight into the interior. Kate liked the building’s design, but the Merkiaari, damn their furry hides, were making good use of it. It was extremely hard to target them when they kept ducking out of sight. Being so narrow, the windows reduced the angle she could use to almost nothing.

Taking careful aim at a shadowy figure in a window, she fired a quick burst and watched the enemy troop stagger back. He wasn’t dead worse luck. There was no way to get a good shot off, but her fire did have the effect of keeping heads down. While they were ducking fire from all sides, they couldn’t be thinking about breaking out.