The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX (13 page)

“I’m running scanner sweeps in all directions, General.  There is nothing.  No energy trail, no radiation.  Nothing to track.”

Cain’s face was like iron.  “We hit another ship, Captain.  You know we did.  We must have done some kind damage, even if it was minimal.  There has to be something we can trace, even bits of debris.”

“Yes,” the Captain said softly.  “That’s an idea.  Maybe debris.  They wouldn’t have had time to patch anything before they took off.”  His hands raced over the workstation, eyes glued to the screen.  “I think I have something.”  He leaned over the scope, staring intently.  “It’s a faint trail, bits of plasti-steel and other materials, probably from the hull.”  He flipped a few controls and put his face back to the scope.  “We just might be able to follow it, General.”  His face snapped up.  “But we need to go now.”

Cain nodded and slapped his hand down on the console.  “Then let’s go.  Just don’t lose that trail, whatever you do.”  Cain tried not to sound too threatening with the last bit, but then again, he thought, a little extra motivation wouldn’t hurt the captain’s concentration.

“Keep up that fire.  Don’t give those bastards a chance to reform.”  Callahan was crouched down, just behind his line on the reverse slope of the ridge.  It had been named after one of the first families to settle on Columbia, but one of his non-coms had rechristened it Dead Man’s Ridge.  Callahan didn’t know, but considering Columbia’s violent history, he suspected the new name might just stick.

His people had advanced 15 klicks, moving straight toward Columbia’s capital…its ruins, at least.  The scanning runs had confirmed that most of Weston had been leveled by a number of tactical nuclear warheads.  By all indications, the detonations had taken place months before, probably during the final days of the planetary army’s defensive efforts.  Callahan couldn’t imagine what those last days of fighting had been like.  The Columbians had a reputation for never giving up, and he wondered how much of the civilian population had died in the fighting – and in the reprisals he suspected their resistance had provoked.

He crouched down and walked along the line, checking on each platoon in turn.  He’d been continually reorganizing, combining shattered formations to keep his units on the line closer to full strength.  Moving troops around on an OB didn’t create any more of them though, and he’d had trouble manning his section of the line, at least until General Mantooth led a bunch of fresh units from the second wave forward and cut the area he had to cover in half.

The bizarre air attack, followed by the almost-immediate landing of the second wave had stabilized the Marines’ position on Columbia.  The enemy’s forward units had been almost obliterated, and the first ten klicks of the advance had required little more than walking straight ahead.

Now the Shadow Legion defense was stiffening, and the Marines had been forced to fight against a series of enemy delaying actions over the last five klicks.  Callahan’s people were just mopping up the last of these, a strongpoint that had put up a hell of a fight.

“Major, it looks like the enemy is setting up a strong defensive line just east of Weston.”  It was General Heath on the com.  “Finish reducing the enemy position and halt your forces.”  Callahan could hear Heath’s exhaustion, despite the general’s best efforts to hide it.  “We’ve got the third wave coming down now, and we’ll wait until they are deployed before we continue forward and assault the new line.”

“Yes, sir.  Understood.”  He didn’t like the idea of giving the enemy time to reorder themselves, but it was worth the wait to add the reinforcements to the line.  The third wave consisted mostly of Janissaries, and the Marines deeply respected their new allies, if for no other reason than the fact that they’d had to fight them for so many years, and they knew how tough they were.  Besides, his people could use a rest, however brief.  He was about to move up and check on the reduction of the enemy strongpoint when his com crackled back to life.

“Major Callahan, I’ve got two…ah…visitors here.  I think you should come over immediately, sir.”  It was Lieutenant Bevin, the commander of the platoon on Callahan’s extreme left.

“Visitors?  What the hell are you talking about, Matt?”  There was a touch of annoyance in Callahan’s voice.  Things were in better shape than they’d been a few hours before, but he still didn’t have time for bullshit.

“Sir, I’m serious.  They say they’re from the planetary army.”

Callahan’s head snapped instinctively toward the south, in the direction of Bevin’s position.  “They’re what?”  He’d heard the lieutenant perfectly, but he still couldn’t reconcile with what he’d been told.  He hadn’t dared to hope that any of the locals had managed to hold out so long against a force as deadly as the Shadow Legions.

“They say they’re officers from the planetary army, sir.  They claim there are over 1,500 men still in arms.  Apparently, they withdrew to the swamps with most of the civilian population, and they’ve been fighting a guerilla war for the past eight months.”

“I’ll be right there, Bevin.”  He turned and started jogging south, crouching low to keep behind the cover of the low ridge.  This, I’ve got to report, he thought.  He flipped his com to the emergency circuit.  “This is Major Callahan…I need to speak with General Gilson immediately.”

“What am I going to do with you, Elizabeth?”  Garret had intended to give Arlington the scolding of her life, but as soon as he saw her, his mind filled with memories.  Garret had known for a long time how Terrance Compton felt about Arlington, and he’d encouraged his friend to ignore notions of propriety and act on his feelings.  Compton hadn’t listened, of course.  No more than Garret had expected him to.  His oldest friend was as unorthodox as he was when leading a fleet into battle, but he was an old stick in the mud in other ways.

Garret could see immediately that Arlington was still devastated by Compton’s loss, and his anger immediately drained away.  He knew he’d never get over losing his lifelong friend.  Why should he expect Arlington to endure the loss of the man she loved any better?  But he still had to deal with her somehow.  He couldn’t let her become a wild daredevil, risking her life recklessly until her luck finally ran out.  He owed that much to Compton if not to her.

“I am sorry, sir.  However, I would like to add that technically, I did not exceed my authority as task force commander.”  She looked back at him sheepishly.

“Technically, Elizabeth?”  Garret glared back at her, but there was no real anger in his eyes.  “Is it my understanding that you feel you should get off on a technicality?”  He paused.  “Is it possible you could have imagined that I would not have wanted to know about this operation before it was launched?  You’ve been too smart an officer for too long to start playing dumb now.”

“No, sir.”  Her voice was soft, but she held her own and didn’t flinch.  Augustus Garret was like a demigod in the Alliance navy, and there were few officers who could stand firm and endure his disapproval.  Arlington was one of them.

“Then why didn’t you advise me before you went ahead?  We were, after all, on the same ship.  Were we not?”

“Yes, sir, we were on the same ship.”  She stood rigidly and held his gaze.  “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid if I did you would order me not to go.”

“You were afraid I would cancel the operation?”

She nodded, almost imperceptibly.  “In part, sir.”  She paused.

“What else?”

She took a breath.  “I was afraid you wouldn’t let me go personally, even if you allowed the operation to proceed.  And I…”  She stopped and took a deep breath.

“Please continue, Admiral.”  Garret’s voice was stern but compassionate as well.

“I couldn’t order anyone to go on that mission unless I went along.”  She hesitated for a few seconds before continuing, her voice becoming more strained as she did.  “And I couldn’t abandon those Marines down there, Admiral.  I couldn’t bear for us to leave our own behind.  Again.”  She gasped out the last word, barely holding back her tears.

“Elizabeth…”  Garret felt her words like a punch in the gut.  He walked over and put his hand on her shoulder.  “I miss him too.  And I’ll never forgive myself for what I did.”

Arlington stared into Garret’s eyes, hearing the pain in his voice, and realizing for the first time that it was always there.  She couldn’t imagine the guilt and burden Augustus Garret carried, the cumulative pain that was the inevitable byproduct of his long and storied career.

Arlington was still devastated by Compton’s loss, but hearing Garret blame himself so profoundly stirred another response in her.  “It wasn’t your fault, sir.  There wasn’t a choice.  I know that.  I always have.”  Her voice was cracking, but she kept her eyes locked on Garret’s and continued.  “He…he knows it too, sir.”  She paused, drawing in a ragged breath.  “You know he does.”

Garret nodded.  “Yes, I know.”  He noted the present tense in her comment.  He hoped she managed to cling to belief that Compton was still alive out there somewhere, but he tended to doubt it.  Arlington was as cold a realist as he was, and they both knew how many First Imperium ships were in that system.  Compton was an extremely talented officer and a veteran of almost 50 years of interstellar warfare.  If anyone could have gotten his people out of that system, it was him, but the odds were very long indeed.  “In fact, I never told you this, Elizabeth, but the last message we received from him told me to pull the rest of the fleet out and blow the warp gate.  He knew there wasn’t another alternative.”  Garret understood everything he was telling her, but he also knew that realization did nothing to ease his own guilt and pain.  He doubted it would for Arlington either.

She stared back at him with a sad, thoughtful expression on her face, but she didn’t say anything.  There was nothing to say.  Compton was gone, and nothing either of them could do would change that.  Now, she had done what she felt she had to do, and she knew she would do it again in the same situation.  She would accept whatever punishment Garret chose to level at her, but she wasn’t sorry for what she’d done, and she wouldn’t lie and say she was.

Garret looked at her silently for a few seconds.  “Well, Elizabeth, as much as I want to scold you, I can’t argue that you saved thousands of Marines on the ground, far more than the 24 crew that were lost on your expedition.”  Garret had never intended to punish her seriously.  In the end, he’d asked himself what he would have done in her situation.  He tried to lie to himself, but he couldn’t.  He knew he’d have gone in as well, and if he’d had a commander who might have overruled him, he’d probably have pulled the same thing she had.

“So, let’s just say congratulations on pulling it off.  I spoke with General Gilson, and I believe the Corps is going to award you a medal – assuming any of us survive this campaign, that is.”  He smiled at her, trying to ease her concerns.  Elizabeth Arlington had enough pain without him adding his disapproval to the mix.  “As far as any reprimand, let’s just say you will come to me next time…and trust me to support you.  And we’ll leave it at that.”

“Thank you, sir.  I will…trust you next time.”

He forced a tiny smile onto his lips, and he was glad to see she managed one too.

Elaine Samitch worked feverishly under the harsh portable lights.  She was awash in blood, desperately trying to save a young Marine.  The kid had been shot to pieces, and she wasn’t sure how he’d even made it to the aid station alive.  His suit’s trauma control system had proven its worth and then some.

He couldn’t have been more than 21 or 22, one of the last wave of new recruits to make it through camp before the fighting on Armstrong had put a stop to Marine training and recruitment.  The Corps had been under enormous pressure to replace losses after the brutal battles of the First Imperium War, and the vaunted Marine regimen had been drastically shortened, its vast program of physical and academic training cut to the bone. 

The casualties had always been higher among the newest Marines, a blood tax war exacted from those newest to its horrors.  Samitch had seen that since the days of the Third Frontier War.  But these latest young Marines had been rushed through training and sent half-ready to the battlefields.  Their losses had been nothing short of catastrophic, and there weren’t many left from those last few classes.

Samitch was in charge of the entire medical team on Columbia.  She’d come down with the second wave and set up the main field hospital and two aid stations.  She had more people landing with the third wave, and she intended to set up a forward hospital closer to the action, handing off the unit in the LZ to her second-in-command.

It felt strange to be in charge.  She’d spent years as Sarah Linden’s executive officer, but now she was tasked with running the show without her friend and mentor.  Sarah was on the hospital ship Boyer, and if fleet rumors had any substance, she was close to breaking the conditioning of the man who was still the only Shadow Legion prisoner taken in the war.

Anderson-45 had been a senior officer, captured on Armstrong in a freak circumstance, when his suit malfunctioned and failed to execute its kill function.  The idea of an army killing its own soldiers rather than risking their capture was just another of the many horrors to spring forth from Gavin Stark’s twisted mind.

The Marines, who’d been fighting a brutal deathmatch against Anderson-45’s comrades, were shocked to find that their new prisoner seemed to harbor no hatred or bad feelings toward them.  Indeed, he’d shown a remarkably unemotional point of view toward the fighting.

Sarah had been working feverishly since they’d taken the captive, trying to find a way to undo the mental and emotional conditioning that compelled the Shadow Legions to blindly follow their orders.  It had been a long and frustrating process, but Sarah had finally made some substantial progress.

She’d planned to put her work on hold to go down to Columbia and head up the medical operation, but Generals Gilson, Merrick, Heath - all the Marine top brass – tried to convince her to stay at her work.  Sarah Linden had led the medical team for every major invasion for 15 years, and she argued vehemently against staying behind.  But when Admiral Garret threw his lot in with the Marines, she’d grudgingly given in and turned command over to Samitch.

She knew they were right in their arguments.  If she could finally break through Anderson-45’s conditioning, she might be able to develop a way to make the Shadow Legions stand down en masse.  If she was successful, she could end the war almost immediately, without spilling another drop of Marine blood.