Koban 6: Conflict and Empire (30 page)

Thond had a plan for that. “When they move most of their citizens out of the city, away from us, I’ll direct the Stranglers to circle and intercept them, they can become hostages. Our Space Force Strangler Captains have been reluctant to get involved, without the Ravager escorts that normally fly cover for them, as they travel low and slow over a population they are beaming into painful submission. Had I stayed on the flagship, the Ground Forces would have had more support. Particularly after what happened to the twenty Stranglers assigned to Gontra.”

Hitok used a Ragnar cliché. “You’re shedding winter hair at the end of summer.” It meant he was too late to wish he’d done something different.

Thond hooted in good humor. “It would relieve the heat I’m feeling now, however.”

Then he added, “I’m eager to see how you and Grifdan adjust to our unpredictable enemy.”

****

Mirikami was pleased. “I’ll bet they couldn’t have predicted so many of our reinforcements would do that, or even realize yet what we just did.”

He was referring to the nearly five hundred ships that separated from the two thousand new arrivals. Close to fifteen hundred ships immediately joined the onslaught on the Ragnar fleet, which tried to hold their own against double their number of warships. They were sacrificing ships to cover the landings of supplies for the Ground Forces. The civilian supply ships were descending recklessly, as if their survival depended on landing quickly. It did, but they were unaware that the only threat today came from the soon to depart Ragnar ships if they didn’t obey. The Ragnar’s own commercial ships Jumped as soon as the new Federation fleet arrived, with the ships of the subservient races already committed to landings. The Ragnar commercial captains only stayed as long as they did, to maintain the pretense that they would be following the ships of the subservient species down to the planet.

Mirikami took advantage of the ships landing, to slip in his ships loaded with four hundred thirty-two Shadows, two hundred ladybugs, and twenty-one thousand Kobani in shielded body armor. Of course, the Kobani ships possessed near perfect stealth only while flying in a vacuum. Atmospheric disturbances from their passage, if they had streaked across empty skies, would have revealed so many of them making landings. So they didn’t do that.

The two hundred fifty Ragnar supply ships were descending towards four landing sites, which were near the same cities where the PDF had the greatest need for what the Kobani brought. The five hundred Kobani ships quickly dove into atmosphere to join with those enemy supply ships, to descend close to the four cities under ground assault, using the supply ships as cover. Their atmospheric passage was mixed with the ion and turbulence trails of the completely visible civilian craft from the Empire.

At extremely low altitude, the Kobani ships separated and proceeded at considerably lower speeds towards their designated landing sites at the four cities, with Mirikami communicating all the while with the PDF colonel, to avoid friendly fire mistakes. The five hundred Kobani ships were not using coded IFF transmissions to identify themselves to the PDF, because that signal would also mark them as the enemy to the Ragnar. You can’t remain anonymous if you shout
here I am
to your friends. The PDF, in turn, was only firing at orbital height targets that were not using IFF, and despite misgivings, they sent no Turb Control guided missiles aloft.

Both sides were being resupplied, with one difference. The Ragnar ground forces would be losing orbital bombardment support and resupply, because they knew their war fleet was about to withdraw. Not so, for the PDF ground forces, with Kobani ships soon to dominate space above Tanner’s World.

****

Commander Grifdan was at the head of his left bank column, following the road on that side of the river. He was staying roughly even with the right bank column, which was led by Lieutenant Commander Kardor, his longtime second in command. Kardor too had his armored head protruding from the top hatch, but neither Ragnar was exposing their entire body, so they were prepared to button up if any opposition presented itself.

Culpa’s armor had transmitted his visuals and vital signs to designated AI’s on selected Ravagers and it was relayed back to the other Groups, as he was roasted alive in his suit, coated in a thick flaming gel of some sort of petroleum product. Gontra had also been exposed, sitting on his turret when he died, but his turret’s cupola had been partly vaporized, along with his body, so being buttoned up would have made no difference for him. 

Several times, Group 2’s split columns encountered abandoned vehicles on their respective roadways. Mindful of how they had been used as flaming booby traps against Culpa’s Group 3, they blasted the vehicles at a safe range, using high-powered lasers.

Every one of them fired at rewarded their caution, not with gouts of flaming petroleum, but with powerful star-hot plasma filled blasts, as their still active fusion bottles ruptured and violently lost containment. Because there was a powerful explosion each time, rather than potentially less lethal plasma venting, Commander Grifdan knew an explosive device had been affixed to their power units. Apparently, the enemy hoped the Pillagers would try to roll over them or push them aside, triggering a detonation when they were close. Usually, if a fusion bottle was burned through this way, the laser created a small molten point of failure somewhere on the containment housing, which caused one side of a fusion bottle to vent energetically. Dangerous, even to a Pillager if it was close enough, but they generally didn’t suddenly explode, sending high velocity fragments to damage the tracks, weapons, or reactive armor.

Grifdan’s drones confirmed that there were dozens of abandoned vehicles on each of the two valley spanning bridges. He had already determined the bridges should be avoided, because of the risk of their being demolished as a column tried to cross the long spans, or a tipped on-its-side orbital laser might be able to pick tanks off as they crossed. He didn’t give a thought to how obvious the booby traps were on the winding roads by the river. That their purpose may have been merely to demonstrate why using the high bridges, with multiple vehicles parked on them, should be avoided.

They found fertile farmland along the wide river valley, and there were frequent evacuated farm dwellings. Livestock was seen near some of the large red structures by the residences, and Debilitater units demonstrated their purpose, as their operators beamed them over the helpless screaming animals, and the silent structures as well, just in case the drones had missed the IR heat signature of someone hiding.

One bored Debilitater operator focused his antenna to form a narrow high-powered beam, and played it on the center of the river, which was slightly below a curve in the road they followed. There were clearly aquatic creatures there, but not a huge population, and most of the fish weren’t very large, as their frantic and painful splashing demonstrated.

His Pillager was in the Legion immediately behind the one the Group Commander personally led. The column was currently pausing behind a low hill where the road followed a river bend to the left. The right bank column would briefly be exposed on the opposite side roadway when they followed that curve. There was a narrow line of sight visibility of both sides of the river from the city, located farther up the valley. The head of the valley narrowed, and rose higher as it neared the edge of the city, with the river filled with rapids as it descended to the more placid waters below.

The split column had been following a simple procedure, when the left or right line of Pillagers would be exposed to the city bluffs, and potential laser or plasma fire from there for a short distance. Units from the still shielded column, protected by the terrain, would take positions just below the top of the hilltop, where their guns could be trained on the city. The column about to be exposed to potential fire, would space units out, and one at a time, race at maximum speed along the well-built road until the next bend of the river valley again gave them cover.

Next, their Pillagers would climb a hillside to cover the advance of the other column for the same limited exposure. At this point in their advance, they were less than two miles from the city limits at lower elevations below higher ground. The main part of the city was built along the top of a huge wide bluff. The weapons the tanks possessed could easily target any structure they could see, and for the guided bunker busters, they could strike the other side of the city if needed, using drone images for targeting coordinates. The Debilitater equipped units had been repeatedly playing narrow beams along the nearest edge of the city, to discourage observers and combatants. There hadn’t been a shot fired at them yet, but neither had there been shots fired at Group 3 or 4, until the traps were sprung.

The enemy’s orbital lasers weren’t firing at overhead targets now. That was possibly a result of not having low level Ragnar targets anymore. Drone observations revealed that the batteries on this side of the city had been driven away from their pads, probably to preserve them from long range tank bombardment, well before the Pillagers reached accurate firing range. The Space Force had held to higher altitudes, above five hundred miles, because fighting with enemy ships could leave them distracted and vulnerable to ground energy beams, if they strayed into lower orbits, where Kobani ships repeatedly tried to draw them. Periodic flashes of exploding ships had burned their way even through the daytime sky on this side of the planet. On the night side, the brilliant flashes had cast brief shadows.

From the surface, it had not been obvious who had the upper hand, since craft of both sides exploded impartially bright. However, knowing that it was their fleet that was about to withdraw, provided the rank-and-file Ragoons enough of a clue as to the allegiance of the majority of those dying ships. The vacuum-suckers had earned their nickname today, and a high measure of respect. At least until the Ragnools vanished into the safety of Tachyon Space, leaving the Ground Forces to hold out on their own, waiting to learn if a relief force would be organized. That was assuming the Emperor, or his High Command, considered them worth saving.

In any event, they intended to continue to fight, because surrendering to the will of the Empire never ended the immediate suffering for the losers. The civilians were made to pay, and their combat forces paid the harshest price, even after surrender. The Thandol never admired the heroics of their opposition, although the Ragnar did. Not that they refused to administer the punishments when ordered to do so.

To cover the right bank column, which was now prepared to accelerate their mechanized units around the exposed bend of the roadway, Grifdan sent two Legions of his Pillagers up the gentle hillside to his left, to provide suppressive fire if needed. The heavy laser tanks also doubled as his air defenses, and they had active radar scans that constantly watched the full sky, seeking enemy targets.

An airborne enemy was defined as anything the Ragnar hadn’t sent up there. The alien
avian species here had been learning that harsh rule of survival all day from every Ragnar armored column, as well as from the infantry forces they’d left at the landing zones. Any bird or animal might be a spy bot, and earned the attention of a low powered laser or higher powered Debilitater ray. Besides, it kept bored gunners occupied and alert.

Looking at a handheld screen, something he knew
Kardor was also doing at the head of the other column, he watched for overlaid digital symbols of any AI detected threat, compiled from the integrated radar, visual, infrared, and audible spectrums being monitored. There was the usual motion of plants in the breezes, distant birds, a number of livestock animals, but nothing moving, mechanical or living, was detected along the city bluff they could see. He signaled Kardor to proceed.

When a hundred eighty of the right bank column had raced around the exposed curve, without any response from the city, and with only five more units to go, Kardor ordered two Legions to climb the hill now shielding his forward Pillagers, to cover the left bank column when it would next be exposed.

That must have been the triggering event for the human defenders, indicating this Group was now close enough for what was to come.

The first suspicious indications on Grifdan’s screen was from both radar and visual spectrums, with a trace of infrared. It looked like a dark gray spray of hundreds of fingers shooting into the sky, with the city’s skyline outlined in front of them. They were followed by billowing clouds of lighter gray rising behind the same buildings, on the right side of the city on the bluff. It was dust and mist, which rose slower than the first sky stabbing shards. It looked as if there had been a massive explosion on the far side of the town.

He felt a sharp vibration transmitted through the ground, transmitted through the tank’s rumbling treads, and saw a sweeping set of small ripples form in a swiftly passing shock wave along the river’s surface, with loose rocks on the hillsides and riverbanks rolling down as they were dislodged.

That relatively mild, artificial seismic event wasn’t registered by the AI’s, since they didn’t have software or sensors to monitor for that. However, traveling slower than the ground shock wave that had just passed them, the sounds of the multiple blasts that caused the sprays of debris reached them next. The audible source of the explosion, along with the now falling chunks of debris, proved that indeed, there had been a massive blast on the opposite side of the city on the bluff.