Legion in Exile, page 20
“Like hell that’s going to happen,” Sergeant Murray Fields responded firmly. “We can beat the bootlickers back.”
Harrison smiled, “Right you are, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have them tracked on course for several key points. The closest to us at the moment is the Fusion plant, of course.”
Fields nodded; it was an obvious target. Controlling the source of power for the area would put them in a good position to control a great deal of the population, both through necessary power needs but also through luxuries in the long term.
“Give these orders to your lieutenant and have your men deploy along these points,” Harrison ordered, handing over a digital orders slip that glowed with the marked locations on the map. “To get any serious firepower in at you, they’ll have to come through bottlenecks. You know what to do when that happens.”
“I do indeed, sir.”
“Then be about your business, Sergeant.”
“Yes Sir!”
Fields saluted quickly at the dismissal, then turned on his heel and jogged off to catch up with his group.
The Lieutenant was already there when he arrived, and Fields handed off the orders to him after a quick exchange of salutes.
“Holding the plant then?” Lieutenant Danny Kinds hummed to himself. “These look like excellent kill boxes, at least.”
“I believe they were designed to be when the plant was built, Sir.”
“Yes, probably right there,” Kinds admitted. “Alright, let’s get into place. I wouldn’t want the enemy to get there before us, seems like it would be rude not to have a greeting ready.”
“Right you are, Lieutenant, right you are.”
*****
Imperium IFV, On Descent
The atmospheric turbulence was shaking them around a little as they dropped, the Lenz repulsor all but turned off to allow as fast fall into the combat zone amid the fury of exchanged fire between the air defense systems and the fleet overhead.
Captain Mako Boreanz carefully checked the flight telemetry as he felt the sensation of freefall start to barely fade away, not wanting to wind up actually between the two sources of heavy fire. It was bad enough just trying to fly through a normal atmospheric entry at these speeds, getting anywhere near the sort of power that those weapons were putting out was not on his bucket list.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “Watch for any sign of close in air defense fire. So far, we’re only seeing their big guns, but those aren’t meant for us. I’m more worried about the small to medium stuff we haven’t seen yet.”
“I’m looking, Sir, but nothing yet,” Lieutenant Samantha Carey answered. “If I were in their position, I’d hold it back until the last second and hammer the hell out of us on approach.”
“Yeah, me too,” Mako answered sourly.
That was going to suck, there was no question about that. There were limits to what the ships in orbit could provide in terms of support in this sort of situation, and one of those was that shipboard weapons were not designed to take out smaller mobile anti-aircraft weapons.
If they had good targeting solutions for them, sure it would be no problem, but that was the whole point of running a mobile system, after all.
He leaned back and twisted, looking over his shoulder. “Marines! We’re about to go terminal, so lock up and get ready for the drop!”
He heard them yell back, the sound barely comprehensible over the shaking of the craft and the sheer volume of alerts he was being inundated with, but it was good enough, so Mako hit the button to seal up the Marine’s section and put their drop systems on automatic.
“There’s the fusion plant, Sir,” Samantha told him, nodding up ahead.
“I see it,” He responded.
The flashing lights in the distance normally warned aircraft away from the exclusion zone around the fusion plant, but right now they were a beacon inviting the IFV right in. At some point, someone would think to turn them off and future flights would have to run on instruments, but that point wasn’t now, it seemed.
“Settling into our final approach… whoa!”
A spread of chaff filled explosions littered along the front and side of the IFV as they dropped below twenty thousand feet, a light patter of shrapnel raining along their armored sides as they continued through it.
“Command, IFV Nine Alpha Bravo Two. We are encountering air defense fire,” he said over the radio.
“Roger Nine Alpha Bravo Two, continue with mission. Pulling target solutions from your system, will respond when possible.”
“Roger that. IFV continuing on mission.”
Easy enough to say and do, since he’d not flinched from the mission in the first place, but procedure was procedure after all.
“It’s going to get rougher from here,” Mako said grimly, hitting the alert so that the Marines knew that they’d just been dropped in it proper.
*****
In the back of the IFV, the Marines grumbled mostly quietly.
This was the worst part of things, and they all knew it. In a few more moments, they’d be on the ground and their fates would be in their own hands. That was something they understood and were more than willing to take on. Right now, however? Their fate was very much out of their hands, and to a man they hated every second of it.
“Buck up, Marines,” The Nob Colonel yelled over the sound. “We’ll be on the ground shortly, and show these uppity colonists just what Earth can really do!”
That actually made most of them grin a little. Few had any love lost for the Nobility, but they hated the Colonists even more. There wasn’t a single soul among them who hadn’t grown up hearing about what happened, leading up to when the lights went out, and how the colony ships had robbed the planet blind before venturing off into the depths of space like thieves in the night.
Generations of people had dreamed about recouping a little vengeance on the colonies, and now… it was finally happening.
They went from grumbling to talking themselves into a bit of a bloody frenzy at that, right up until the IFV suddenly jerked hard to one side and then began to shake uncontrollably.
*****
Mako swore as the flak hammered their airspace, not close enough to hit the IFV but more than enough for the concussion to throw them around while they were running a low-profile descent.
“Hang on, it’s going to get rough,” he called out, still dropping fast amid the fire.
Around them the fire was intensifying as the group of Terran IFVs dropped like rocks through the thickening atmosphere. Blue icons were blinking off his HUD as he looked around, but not as many as they’d projected in the worst case… if that was much of a comfort.
“We’re on the bounce in five,” the Lieutenant said beside him, flipping a couple switches over to redirect power to the Lenz system.
“Roger that, full power to repulsors on my mark,” Mako said, hand gripping the manual control stick as he started the countdown, “Two… One… Mark!”
The Lieutenant threw full power into the repulsors and everyone was slammed into the deck of the IFV hard as the ship began pushing against the magnetic field of the planet, slowing fast as it’s drop profile turned into a sharp arc that swept them forward to the target.
“Defensive fire is getting thicker,” Sam told him, not that he couldn’t see that for himself. “Countermeasures reaching saturation.”
“Almost there…” Mako intoned more than spoke, reaching out to arm the drop system, “Stand by for drop.”
A squeal split the air, swallowing his cursing as Samantha started working feverishly.
“Active lock! It’s through our spoofers, launching decoys!”
“Too late,” Mako got out. “Viper is inside the envelop! Marines, Good luck!”
He blew the charges holding the Marines drop crate to the IFV just seconds before the missile slammed home into them and the world vanished from his view.
*****
Corporal Genoa swore and clutched at the straps holding him place as the world spun around him and his guts tried to leap up and out his throat. He could see the Colonel, the man was blanched white with eyes wide in panic, looking like a three-day old corpse with rigor mortis fully set in.
The company Sergeant, however, was swearing up a storm in a shockingly calm tone.
“Goddamn it,” The Sarge snapped, looking up as best he could. “We just lost our ride, boys! Get ready to hump it as soon as we kiss dirt!”
Genoa was glad someone seemed to think that they’d have the option of walking once this was all over, but he was barely able to keep from panicking himself… and only because it really wouldn’t do much anyway.
It felt like hours passed as they fell, but really it could only have been seconds at most and likely not even that. Just enough time for him to try to swallow his own stomach back down his throat, then the failsafe rockets roared, shaking the hell out of him and everything around him as Genoa was slammed into his seat with enough force to drive his guts out of his throat and threaten to push them right out his ass.
He figured the only reason he didn’t crap his intestines out there was because his ass was pushed into the seat so hard the pucker was airtight.
And then, just as quickly as that, it was over.
They were still shaking plenty, but the acceleration was back to Earth normal or near enough that he couldn’t tell the difference.
“Pucker up!” The sarge yelled over the sound.
What? Why? It’s over…
He didn’t quiet get to finish his thought before the IFV cargo crate slammed into the ground, hard enough rattle his teeth and make his spine beg for mercy.
The Sarge wasn’t having any of that, though, even before they’d stopped moving, he had his restraints off, rifle in hand, and was kicking the Marines into motion toward the door that was even the deploying open.
“Move your asses, Marines! Standing still is for targets, and targets get serviced. If you lot want servicing, save it for the whore house after the fighting is done! Move! Move! Move!”
Genoa stumbled out, barely ahead of the Sarge’s boot as the man stormed along behind them actually physically dragging the Nob Colonel along with him as he did.
The first thing Genoa noticed was that the smell of the burning rockets aside, the air was so clean. It crisp and fresh and somehow felt like it was flaying his nasal cavity with it’s almost painfully clean sensation.
Maybe all the shit in the air back home lubricates your sinuses, he thought ironically, but really didn’t get much time to think about it beyond that.
He shivered a bit, not sure if it was from the air, the cold, or the aftereffects of the adrenaline hit that was still coursing through his veins. Probably all three.
The Sarge got a headcount, made sure everyone was alive and mobile, then took a moment to get the Colonel on his feet and looking more or less like a living man again, and then turned back to them.
“We’re a klick out of the intended LZ, and that fusion plant ain’t gonna surrender itself. Let’s move out, Marines.”
*****
Chapter 22
Nova Caledonia
“Don’t go thinking you can tell either of us what to do, brother,” Jinsha scowled. “I may be younger, but I am an adult, and you left the family.”
Carmine held up his hands laughingly, “I know my limits, sister dearest, and trying to give orders to our family is well past them. No, I meant merely that you both need a plan… or at least a goal. Have you given much consideration to either?”
Eryn sighed. “Thus far, we’ve been more concerned with finding a place secure and safe enough to do that sort of thinking.”
“Understandable,” Carmine assured them both. “You had a hell of a thing dropped on you. Not having a plan for this, for you at least, is forgivable. If Eryn here were a couple decades more experienced, I might be more judging about things, but as it stands, I’m impressed you made it this far.”
Neither of the pair seemed to quite know how to take that, but that was fine and again something Carmine had come to expect from younger people. No matter how well trained, or how expert, there were some things that just came with experience. Oddly, taking a compliment was often one of those.
“I was considering a pair of options to present to Her Majesty,” Eryn spoke up after a moment.
From the look Jin sent him, Carmine presumed that the boy hadn’t been talking about them.
“Oh? What options would those be?” he asked curiously.
“They depended heavily on Her Majesty’s desires,” Jinn said uncomfortably. “But if she wanted to be done with it all, I’ve been examining exploratory charts, looking for an interesting sector we could spend some time in, looking for anything of interest. A decade or two, they’d lose interest in her bloodline and give up the search. She could return and quietly retire somewhere pleasant.”
Carmine tilted his head, considering that. “An option, to be sure, assuming the pampered princess there didn’t mind roughing it for a while.”
That last he shot off in his sister’s direction, a smirk on his lips to soften the blow the words might otherwise have had and ensure that she got angry with him rather than herself. Her visible fury was heartwarming, so he grinned wider.
Eryn, for his part, seemed happy not getting in the middle of that.
Smart kid.
“You picked a ship that could do the job,” he went on, nodding. “Long range, consumables for a dozen would keep the pair of you going for years if you needed it. I can see that as an option. What was your alternate?”
Eryn grimaced, but mustered forward, “On the assumption that her family blood runs true, and her sense of responsibility had been triggered…”
Carmine snorted at the nearly betrayed look Jin shot the boy, shaking his head in amusement.
“I was considering looking for support in running a countercoup, to place Her Majesty back on the throne.”
Silence dropped across the room, Jin’s look of betrayal shifting to one of shock. Carmine, however, merely nodded.
“Yes, an attractive solution if it could be established,” he conceded. “However, it is one fraught with significant issues.”
Eryn nodded, “I know. I was scheduled for political training in the next few years, but I’ve studied ahead enough to recognize the largest of those, especially since they tie into our asymmetrical warfare studies.”
“They do indeed.”
Carmine took a breath, “I’ll be honest, there would be significant support for such a venture at this juncture… the problem, though…”
“What price.”
“Exactly,” Carmine agreed with the young Legionnaire. “The only groups that could back you, would do it solely to get hooks into the Empire’s throne. At a minimum, I would expect an arranged marriage would be the price, and the price would go up from there.”
Eryn’s face had turned to stone at that, while Jin’s expression had blanched white. Carmine didn’t blame them; they were kids and still held a lot of their ideals. The Galaxy wasn’t a nice place, even before people got involved. Adding humans to the mix just seemed to turn an impersonal hostility into a very malicious one at the sort of levels they were discussing.
Mother would have accepted the marriage, played it out for a few decades until she was resituated, and then arranged for a falling out. Whether her husband survived said falling out would depend entirely on how he’d treated her previously. I can’t see Jin being cold enough to do that… yet, anyway.
Outwardly, he sighed. “And there’s another problem.”
That got their attention, at least, and distracted from the previous issue.
“What is it?” Jin asked, sounding uncertain.
“After the initial Imperial advance, both the Orions and the Republic took advantage and moved on colonies they had claim to that had fallen under the control of Libation. They’ve pulled back slightly, since the Reef, but with the possibility of a three-way external threat looming… nobody is going to be eager to put resources into a longshot. They’d welcome the princess with open arms, of course, but would almost certainly use her as propaganda rather than mount any sort of counter coup… at least for the time being.” Carmine explained. “The Republic would happily offer their help but…”
“Not on my life,” Jinsha snapped. “I’ve seen the reports on how they manage things within their borders.”
Carmine nodded soberly, “Aye. The Orions would be the best of a bad bunch, I’ll admit, but they won’t settle for less than controlling Terra via a shadow government. They’d tied you down so tight, you’d only be able to rubber stamp their decisions.”
He went quiet for a bit, but then just shrugged. “If the Reef hadn’t been hit as it was, I could probably pull together enough resources to make a decent shot at it… but the Cluster has circled the starships now. You were lucky to get the ship you did.”
Eryn nodded, “I expected that. Which means it’s option one, or find something else.”
“I might be able to offer a possibility,” Carmine said casually.
He grinned inwardly at the way Jin’s eyes narrowed at him, pleased that she remembered him well enough to suspect the trap.
“What sort of possibility?” she asked, tone clearly suspicious.
“Nothing too onerous, at least not for your young man here,” he said assuredly, holding his amusement in when she went red faced at the implications, just barely managing not to sputter any denials, which showed that she’d received at least some training from their mother at least. “Locally, we’re having a problem… with the Orions.”
He looked between the pair, not really expecting them to understand that and he was not surprised when they didn’t.
“The Cale is close to Orion space. We’re one of the outer most parts of the Cluster… right on the edge where it intersects the Orion Arm. The only reason we’re not contested space is because, frankly, no one really cares about us here. The lack of an integral magnetic field makes repulsor drives useless, and rockets are an expensive way to reach orbit,” he explained. “So we’ve been lucky; part of the cluster but trade freely with the Orions as well since no one cares enough to put a proper trade center on-world here. That’s changing, however, and the Orions are making noises about ‘securing’ this region against further hostilities. For our own good, of course.”
