The Fall: Crimson Worlds IX (17 page)

He could see Paine and White advancing off to his right, moving quickly, completely ignoring his instructions to be cautious.  He’d already decided the two had to be a major headache for General Tyler, but now he was realizing they were tremendous warriors as well.  He could see they knew their way around a battlefield as well as he did.  He just hoped their luck didn’t run out on his watch.

He surged forward to the next cover, a pile of shattered masonry that had once been a small building.  It was about 20 meters ahead, and he took a deep breath and ran for it.  The fire was getting heavier as his forces closed on the enemy line, and he could see Marines down now.  He dove for the cover of the debris and did a combat roll, finishing in a prone position with his rifle at the ready.  He could see the enemy trench line now, just visible though the haze and smoke of the battlefield.

He looked up to the right, to the hills in the background.  Farooq’s men were there, and as soon as they got set up, they would dominate the ground behind the trenches.  If Callahan’s Marines could drive the enemy out of their fortifications, Farooq’s gunners would massacre them on the retreat.

“Keep moving, Marines!” he yelled into the com.  “Take those trenches.”  He took another breath, hopping over the broken pile of concrete and running forward.

“You have waited for this day, my soldiers.  You have bled for it.”  Tyler stood on a small rise, looking out at the 1,500 troops he still commanded, the last remnants of Columbia’s once powerful army.  “You have seen our people driven from their homes, forced to live like animals in the wilderness.  You have seen the dead in the streets, civilians…children.”

He raised his arms in the air.  “Well, that ends now!”

The crowd roared, men and women raising their battered rifles into the air and shouting his name.  “Tyler!”

“Today we take back our world.  Today we begin the final campaign, fighting alongside the Alliance Marines, who have once again come to Columbia to battle an invader.”  He looked over toward Mandrake and a small cluster of his officers.  “It is an honor and a privilege to serve alongside these men and women, to go into battle with such illustrious veterans and heroes.”

The shouts of the soldiers were becoming louder, and they cheered wildly every time Tyler mentioned the Marines.  It was an angry, excited, screaming mob, ready to march into hell itself to drive the Shadow Legions from their world.

“Now, we will take our vengeance, my soldiers.  Now, we will make the invaders pay for every centimeter of our world and every drop of Columbian blood that has been spilled.”  He waved his arms wildly, working the soldiers into a frenzy.  “The orders are attack.  Attack, attack, attack.  Keep fighting until no enemy lives to breath Columbian air!”  He held his own rifle above his head.  “Now, to your units, and forward to meet the enemy.”

The soldiers shouted his name again and again.  “Tyler, Tyler, Tyler…”

“To your units, and may even God forsake our wretched enemy.”  He stood and watched as the ragged soldiers streamed toward their rally points.  He’d reorganized his shrunken army into four battalions, and now he watched his troops forming into those newly-designated groups.  They were ready for the fight ahead, as ready as any warriors who had ever lived.  He knew they would sustain Columbia’s reputation as a world that would not tolerate invaders.  Today, the Shadow Legions would curse the day they set foot on Columbian soil.

Tyler stepped down from the hill, walking over toward Mandrake and his command group.  “Good luck to all of you.”  He extended his hand toward the major.

“And to you, General Tyler, and all of your people.”  He grasped the Columbian dictator’s hand.  “And may our victory be swift and easy.”  He knew it would be neither, but it helped him on some level to imagine it was possible.

Mandrake turned back to his officers.  “To your posts.  We move out in five minutes.”  The cluster of Marines nodded crisply and trotted off to their units.

The Marine battalion would be spearheading the attack.  Less than half of Tyler’s troops were armored, and Mandrake had insisted the exhausted Columbian warriors form up behind his fresh Marines.  It had taken some convincing, but Tyler finally agreed.

Mandrake had been impressed by Tyler’s strength and tenacity.  The Columbian general reminded him of Kara Sanders on Arcadia.  The two partisan leaders had the same incredible tenacity, an utter refusal to give up no matter what the odds.  Kara had lived through some dark days to see her world liberated, and Mandrake was determined to see Tyler did as well.

His thoughts drifted back to Arcadia.  Kara had made quite an impression on him, and he found himself thinking of her often.  He scolded himself when she slipped into his mind, pushing the thoughts back.  He didn’t have time for such nonsense now.  She was lightyears away, and he had a job to do.  Mandrake was a realist.  If the Corps was going to defeat the Shadow Legions, not only on Columbia but everywhere, he knew not many of them would survive.  His future was more likely death in battle on some colony world than hearth and home with Kara Sanders.  But despite his efforts and all his discipline, she kept creeping back into his thoughts.

“All companies report ready to advance, sir.”  Lieutenant Grove was his aide, a young officer who’d come up during the struggle with the First Imperium.  “And General Tyler reports his forces are also ready.”

Mandrake took a deep breath and looked out toward the assembled formations.  He turned slowly and stared back at Grove, uttering a single word.

“Attack.”

Callahan spun around and fired, his shot taking down an enemy trooper about to fire on one of his people.  The battle was a confused mess, both sides swirling in and around the bloodsoaked trenches, the attackers pressing their assault with unwavering fortitude, and the defenders refusing to yield a centimeter.

The fighting was down to blades in places, the hyper-thin edges of the deadly knives slicing right through armor and the flesh below.  The enemy resistance was toughest right around Callahan, which was why he was there.  He’d led three assaults up the narrow trench line, trying to break through, but the enemy troopers held on, throwing them back each time.  Losses on both sides were enormous, and the forces remained locked in a bloody fight to the death.

The enemy had tried to reinforce the trench line, but Farooq’s Janissaries had opened fire on the advancing troops, shattering their formations and sending the survivors retreating in a disordered mess.

Strategy and tactics no longer mattered.  The battle was down to guts and determination, and the side who hung on longest, who outlasted the fortitude of their opponents, would have the victory.

Callahan had been in the thick of the fighting since his forces had streamed into the trenches.  He knew his people had to see him, and he did everything he could to set the example and strengthen the will of his beleaguered Marines.  He had his assault rifle in one arm, and his molecular blade extended on the other.  His back was against the wall of the trench, and he had gunned down at least a dozen of the enemy and killed two with his blade.

He could see Paine and White, standing back to back, fighting enemy troops coming at them from two sides.  The ancient armor the Columbians wore didn’t carry the super-sharp molecular blades, but the two fought on, firing with such deadly accuracy no enemy was able to close to hand to hand range.

Callahan had lost count of his casualties, but he was sure his people had killed more of the enemy than they’d lost.  The Shadow Legions troopers weren’t easy to distinguish from his own people at first sight.  They wore the same armor, carried the same weapons.  The suit AIs tracked friend or foe transponders, and they warned a Marine if he was about to fire at a friendly target, but looking at the piles of bodies in the trench, it was hard to see whose they were.

He swung around, firing at a fresh group of enemy soldiers rushing toward him.  He’d taken down two when the third managed to bring his rifle around and fire.  Callahan felt the impact on his leg.  It wasn’t pain, at least not at first.  Just a strange realization he’d been hit.  The pain came a second later, but it was gone in an instant, as his suit’s trauma control system flooded his bloodstream with painkillers and other meds.

“Give me some poppers, Ian.”  He’d named his AI after his father, who’d also been a Marine.  Ian Callahan had died on Tau Ceti III, during the disastrous operation known to history as the Slaughter Pen, and his namesake had accompanied his son into a dozen campaigns.

Callahan felt the amphetamines flowing through his body, counteracting his exhaustion and the effects of the painkillers.  He couldn’t afford to be groggy now.  He leaned back into the trench wall, taking the weight off his stricken leg.  The soldier who’d shot him was dead already, killed by his own return fire.

There were enemies coming at him from every direction.  He chanced a quick look at his display, glancing up as he fired desperately into the approaching soldiers.  He could see it immediately.  His people were losing the fight.  They had fought with great courage and tenacity, but there were just too many of the enemy.  At least half his people were down, and the rest were split up into groups, desperately trying to hold out against the enemy troopers swarming them.

He knew he was almost done too.  It wouldn’t be long before one of his attackers took him down.  He gritted his teeth and kept firing, spraying the area around him with hypervelocity projectiles.  If he was going to die here, he was resolved to do it well.  To die like a Marine.

He felt another shot, this one on his arm.  He sank down to his knees, still firing as yet another round hit him.  He could feel the blood pooling inside his armor, and the pain as the medical system tried to force expanding foam into the wounds to stop the blood loss.

This was it.  After all his battles, this was where it ended.  He tried to clear his head, groaned as he raised his rifle with his good arm.  There were at least a dozen enemy soldiers moving toward him, bringing their rifles to bear.

Suddenly, one of his attackers fell.  Then another.  The rest of them turned quickly, but it did them no good.  They went down one after the other, until they were all dead.  Callahan wasn’t sure what was happening, and he drifted on the edge of consciousness.

“Are you OK, sir?”  It was Paine, and he was crouching above him, looking down.

He coughed, trying to clear his throat.  He was wounded, but the med system was stabilizing everything and replacing his lost blood with synthetic.  He felt another wave of uppers flooding his bloodstream, and his lucidity started returning.

“I’m alright.”  It was a bit of an overstatement, he thought, but he wasn’t dead, and he’d damned sure expected to be by now.  “Thanks for the assist.”

“Any time, sir.”  There was a strange sound in Paine’s voice, a ferociousness he hadn’t heard before.  “Any chance to kill these Shadow motherfuckers is worth it.  Saving a comrade is just a bonus.”

Callahan felt a little chill at Paine’s tone.  The two Columbian officers had been nothing but friendly with him, but now he started to understand what watching your world occupied, its people brutalized and killed, did to a man.  There was a hatred in Paine’s voice toward the Shadow Legions more intense than anything he’d ever encountered.

He pulled himself up, propping his back against the edge of the trench.  Paine and White may have saved him, but his people were still losing the fight.  He was about to order a retreat when he saw shadows looming over the edge of the trench.  Dark forms moved up to the lip and leapt in, molecular blades protruding from both arms.

It was the Janissaries.  Farooq’s men had come around, and they were pouring into the trench from the enemy rear.  Callahan let out a wild battlecry, recoiling at the pain of the exertion.  The Janissaries had come.

He looked up at Paine, who was hovering over him.  “Go,” he screamed.  “I’ll be fine.  It’s time to finish these bastards!”

Sarah Linden was staring at her workstation trying to focus.  She was close to solving the problem, and she knew it.  There was something missing, some last piece of the puzzle that had eluded her.  She was determined to figure it out, but she was having trouble concentrating.  Her thoughts kept drifting down to the surface, to the overloaded field hospitals she knew she should be commanding.  It felt wrong to be sitting in her nice, sterile lab while Marines were fighting and dying in the mud and filth of the battlefield.  For 20 years she had been there, just behind the lines, waiting to do whatever was necessary to save those men and women.  Her field hospitals had been in abandoned buildings, tents, even caves, but everywhere she had gone, Marines who would have died survived their wounds.  She understood all the logic and the rationale for why she’d stayed behind, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.

It was one more distraction, adding to the anguish and pain already tearing at her insides as she tried to unravel the mysteries of Anderson-45’s conditioning.  She knew success might render battles like the one going on now obsolete.  The Shadow Legions followed their orders because they were conditioned to do so, not out of any real loyalty to Gavin Stark.  If she could break that hold, give the thousands of clones access to the free will she knew existed somewhere within each of them, she could end the war and destroy Stark’s bid for power in one stroke.

Her hand slipped into her pocket, her fingers closing gently around something small and cold.  Erik Cain had left his Marine ring behind on her table when he left Armstrong in search of Gavin Stark.  Some might suggest he hadn’t taken it with him for the same reason he’d left his general’s stars behind, but Sarah knew him better than anyone, and she understood perfectly.  For the first time in all his wars and his desperate battles, Erik didn’t expect to come back.  He’d left the ring so she would have something of him if he died on his quest.

A military life filled with almost ceaseless combat had left Cain with few personal possessions, and he’d left her the thing he’d had that was most precious to him.  She’d known as soon as she came in and saw it laying there.  She’d burst into tears then, but now she’d resolved to keep the thing with her at all times, not as a remembrance of a lover she would never see again, but as a sign of her belief he would return to her, as he always had before.  She refused to give up, even to consider the possibility that Erik would lose his battle with Stark, that he would die far away from her, on some distant planet or ship.  No, she’d sworn to herself.  Not after all they’d been through together.  It just couldn’t end that way.

“Colonel Linden?”  It was Alicia Wing, her lab assistant.  She was at the doorway, peering cautiously inside.  She’d become accustomed to Sarah’s frequent moments of introspection, and she tried to respect her privacy.  Wing had only met Cain twice, but the general was famous…and besides, everyone in the Corps knew the story of Erik Cain and Sarah Linden.

“Yes, Alicia?”  Sarah’s voice was strained at first, but she quickly got control of herself.  “What is it?”

Wing cleared her throat.  She realized from Sarah’s expression she’d come at a bad time, but the news she had just couldn’t wait.  “Colonel, we have the new brainscan results back from Anderson-45.”

Linden had been testing a variety of cures on Anderson-45, but she’d been unable to break the conditioning that compelled the clone-soldier to follow orders from his commanders without question.  She’d broken the code to issue commands, and she could activate the programming and give him her own orders.  But nothing she tried would make him ignore properly-issued commands.  Despite all her efforts, she was still stuck.

She’d ruled out any form of surgery or other physical changes made to Anderson-45’s brain, but she kept coming back to that.  She’d exhausted every purely behavioral option.  There had to be something physical.  There was no other answer.

“Did we find anything?”  The last scan had been by far the most comprehensive, and it had taken Boyer’s AI almost two days to crunch the data.

“Yes!”  The excitement in Wing’s voice was unmistakable.  “I think we may be on the road to solving this.”

Sarah stood up abruptly.  She pushed aside the worries and sadness and guilt, focusing entirely what Wing had told her.  “Let’s get it up on the screen.”  She walked over to the main AI control panel.  “Display Anderson-45 brainscan A-11.”

“Displaying primary results on main screen, Doctor Linden.”  Medical AIs all seemed to speak with variations of the same female voice.  It was designed to be pleasant and calm, but it also got annoying after hearing too many subtly different versions.

Sarah stared at the screen as a graphic of Anderson-45’s DNA moved slowly across.  She watched as section after section went by.  “What is that?”  She paused the display, zooming in on a small area.  “This genomic sequence doesn’t match the original Anderson DNA.”  She punched at the keyboard, bringing up a similar graphic on the screen.  She zoomed in, staring hard at the two side by side.

She turned toward Wing.  “They modified the original Anderson’s DNA.”  It had taken a monumental effort, but Sarah’s people had found the records of the original Anderson, a retired Marine Stark’s people had kidnapped so they could use his DNA for his series of officer clones.  “We need to identify this sequence immediately.”

“The AI is already working on it, Colonel.  It looks related to brain function.”  It was clear Wing was sure they’d found what they’d been looking for.

“That would explain why we’ve been unsuccessful so far.”  She was intrigued, but not entirely convinced yet.  “If they managed to create some kind of genetic susceptibility to the conditioning, it might defeat any purely psychological effort to deprogram.”

Wing nodded.  “The AI agrees.”  The excitement drained from her voice.  “But it hasn’t developed any proposed method for dealing with the situation.”

Sarah stared at the two segments of DNA.  “That’s the problem.  It’s one thing to identify the alleles that give someone brown eyes instead of blue ones and quite another to do anything about the fact that a subject has brown eyes.”  She felt the frustration building inside her, and she cursed Gavin Stark’s thoroughness.  “They’re hardwired to accept their conditioning.”  She was talking to herself as much as to Wing.  “So how do we get around that?”

Augustus Garret sat quietly in his quarters, reviewing reports from the surface.  He was following the action on the ground, but more out of curiosity than anything else.  The land battle was Gilson’s turf, and she was more than capable of directing her Marines.  If she wanted support from the fleet, she would let him know.  And even if she did, he’d still have nothing to do.  He’d already ordered his task force commanders to honor any request from General Gilson or one of her deputies.

In truth, Garret was bored.  He’d escorted Gilson’s transports to Columbia and remained in orbit to protect the Marines on the ground, but he knew they didn’t need anything from him.  They faced a brutal fight, but it was one Garret could do little to aid.

Garret was sure Stark wasn’t going to risk his fleet at Columbia, but he also knew he couldn’t take the chance.  If he pulled out now and Stark’s ships did show up, the Marines on the ground would be in deep shit.  They’d lose all support and satellite com, and they’d be under the guns of the enemy fleet.  And Garret knew Stark would be a hell of a lot less cautious about bombarding an Alliance planet than he had been.

No, he was stuck where he was, with nothing to do but wonder what was going on elsewhere…and listen to the ghosts that tormented his lonely hours.  He knew people wondered at his stamina and the relentlessness with which he fought his battles, but the truth would have shocked them all.  His hours of tireless effort and the grating tension of command were his most contented ones.  At least his thoughts were occupied, diverted from the sorrow and remembrance that plagued his idle time.

  Garret wondered what he would do if his people managed to defeat Stark and win the war.  Would there really be a lasting peace?  And if there was, could he survive it?

Augustus Garret was the perfect warrior, a legend throughout occupied space, but all that success in battle had come at a horrendous cost.  He knew he had survived too long, given too many eulogies for lost friends, and the shadows of those who had died around him loomed large during his hours of solitude.

The AI interrupted his brooding with its gentle chime.  “Admiral Mondragon is here.”

“Open the door.”  Garret straightened himself up, brushing his wrinkled uniform into some semblance of neatness.  “Francisco, thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Of course, sir.”  The heavyset officer walked into the room, snapping to attention and saluting.

“Have a seat, Francisco.”   Garret gestured to one of the other chairs around the small table.  “Let’s keep this an informal chat, shall we?”

“Yes, Admiral.”  Mondragon pulled the chair out and slowly sat down.  “What can I do for you, sir?”  Mondragon hadn’t started his career in the Alliance navy.  He’d emigrated from the Europan fleet near the end of the First Imperium War.  His service as part of Garret’s combined fleet had opened his eyes to the Alliance navy’s professionalism and skill, in stark contrast to the Europan fleet, clogged with rampant cronyism and institutionalized corruption.  His Basque heritage gave him no particular love for Europa Federalis, which was more an occupier of his homeland than a government representative of its people and their wishes.  With Garret’s approval, he’d resigned his commission and joined the Alliance navy.

“As you know, Francisco, we are out of communication with the Sol system, most likely because Stark’s forces have interdicted the Commnet network somewhere between here and there.”

Mondragon nodded.  “Yes, sir.  I’m inclined to agree with that assessment.”

“I doubt Stark will make a naval move against Columbia, not with the whole fleet here.  However, I cannot take the risk of leaving the Marine foothold unprotected just in case.  Stark could have a ship powered down in the outer system, waiting to warn him in the event the fleet departs.”  He paused for an instant and added, “Indeed, he almost certainly has pickets out beyond our detection range.”  He looked across the table at Mondragon.

“Yes, sir.  I understand.”  A short pause.  “And agree.”

I considered splitting the fleet, leaving part here to cover Columbia and sending the rest to Sol, but I decided against that as well.  Without better intelligence on the extent of Stark’s fleet, we might be inviting disaster by allowing him to attack a portion of our total force and defeating it in detail.”  Like the rest of his comrades, Garret had become somewhat paranoid about Stark and what he might do.  None of them had ever faced an adversary so brilliant and capable, and it had them all second-guessing every move.

Mondragon nodded, though he thought Garret was being overly conservative.  He didn’t think Stark could defeat the Alliance’s great admiral even if he had only half his ships.  And a commander like Camille Harmon or Mike Jacobs could give any attacking force a hell of a fight too.

“But we need to know what is going on back on Earth and in the rest of the Sol system.”  He paused, his eyes finding Mondragon’s.  “I’d like to put together a small task group, all fast ships culled from the rest of the fleet units.  I want to send it to Sol to see what is going on there, and to take whatever action may be necessary.”  He took a deep breath.  “I want you to command that task group, Francisco, and I’d like you to leave as soon as possible.”

Mondragon stared back, a stunned look on his face.  “I’d be honored, Admiral.”

Garret sighed softly.  “Don’t be so honored, Francisco.  This isn’t running an errand.  I’m talking about a very dangerous mission.  Stark’s fleet is out there, but so are the remnants of the other Powers’ navies.  And we have no idea what they are doing, or even whose orders they are under.”  His tone was grim.  It was clear he didn’t like sending any of his people out in a small, vulnerable group.  “Anyone you encounter may be an enemy…and probably will be.  If you’re attacked, you won’t have any battleline, just a few light cruisers and fast attack ships.”

“I understand, sir.”  Mondragon knew everything Garret said was true, but he couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride that the great admiral was trusting him with a mission of this sort.  “Have you designated a roster of ships for the mission?”

Garret nodded.  He picked up a small ‘pad from the table and ran his finger across.  “Here.  Twelve light cruisers and 24 attack ships.  They’re all newer vessels, completely undamaged.  They’re the fastest ships we’ve got.”

Mondragon nodded.  “Thank you again, Admiral Garret.  I cannot properly express how much your confidence means to me.”

Garret nodded and forced a smile.  “Then you best go get ready.  I’d like you to leave in 12 hours.”

Mondragon stood up abruptly.  “Yes, sir!”

Garret rose as well and extended his hand.  “Good luck, Francisco.  I will have orders out to the ships within the hour, and they will be assembled for you by 2200 fleet time.”

“Thank you, sir.”  He shook Garret’s hand and walked quickly through the door.

Garret watched him leave, the false smile fading from his lips.  He knew Mondragon would face all kinds of dangers on the way to Sol, if he made it at all.  But Garret had to try to make contact with someone - the high command on Earth, Roderick Vance, anyone.  He had to know what was going on.