Extinction Wars: 02 - Planet Strike Page 26

  There was nothing majestic or awesome about the spectacle. Instead, there was something vile and evil in the action. It reminded me a black widow spider sac, one guarded by a poisonous mother. I’d watched once as a child, absorbed with the tiny hatchlings crawling out of a silk egg sac. I’d watched until my stepdad crushed the sac and the black widow with the sole of his shoe, twisting his foot back and forth. A hard smack to the back of my head and a stern lecture taught me why I shouldn’t have been bent over like that, watching.

  “You kill black widows whenever you can,” my stepdad had told me. It had been one of his few useful lessons.

  “The Karg vessels are accelerating,” Venturi said. “I will follow them at a discreet distance.”

  “Right,” I said. “They must be heading for the portal.”

  “I am of a similar opinion,” Venturi said.

  For the next several hours, we followed the Kargs. Another burnt-out planet burst apart, and more giant, snowflake-shaped vessels headed in the same direction like a horde of lemmings, only these were fantastically massive ships instead of rodents. And these lemmings didn’t head for a cliff to dive into the ocean and oblivion. The fleets headed for a portal that would give them life and endless combat in a new, fresh universe. Their numbers were staggering. I was witnessing thousands of ships, masses that should never exist.

  How many vessels would it take to conquer a galaxy, two galaxies or three, four or more? Well, I was witnessing the recruiting ground, or recruiting space-time continuum for such a campaign. Sure, it would take the Kargs a million years to get the job done, but they would be starting with our spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.

  “Admiral, you might need to jump to the head of the line,” I said.

  “I have reached a similar conclusion,” Venturi said.

  Seconds later, there came a bump, and then another and another as the dreadnought increased velocity.

  The gas molecules and dust made our shield red with energy. That was bad. If the dreadnought’s electromagnetic field overloaded…

  “I suggest you get your troopers ready,” Venturi said.

  “Do you see the portal?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But if this universe is shrunken to this tiny area, I doubt the portal will be far from here. Look at the masses of ships.”

  I observed the big screen, and there were tens of thousands of enemy starships in long lines, all heading inward toward the portal presumably. The inner misery threatened to return in my heart. I shook my head. I refused to give up. I never had yet. Why begin now here in this infernal pit of a universe?

  Yeah, it was time to get ready. Time to don a symbiotic suit, check my rifle and make sure I had a ton of grenades ready. Time to talk to my colonels and number off. Seeing these Karg ships, I imagined that the portal planet swarmed with vessels the way ants swarm an open jar of honey. The only good I could see from this would be that the new Karg ships would push the others away to make room for more, more, more. It also showed me there was only going to be one attack wave for us, the first one. That meant loading each transport and dropship with three times the regular numbers. Every inch of each aisle would be crammed with troopers. Even that probably wasn’t going to be enough.

  During the next few hours, I found out that I was wrong. The colonels soon informed me of the many suicides. By tripling the numbers in the drop-boats, I could now take every human left alive on the dreadnought.

  I worked hard, cajoling, pleading, shouting and slapping endless backs. Halfway through the proceeding, Venturi informed us he saw the portal.

  A ragged cheer went up as I oversaw troopers.

  “Let’s load up the boats,” I said. “Once we’re back into hyperspace, I don’t think we’re going to have much time but to race into combat.”

  Work helped keep me from despairing. The bio-suit also helped. Had Claath known about this universe and its effect on humans? Had his scientists done things to the symbiotic suits that allowed us this extra margin? Had his reason for coming to Earth been different from what he’d told us? Maybe the Lokhars had known more than they told us, too.

  Bloody aliens; there was nothing good about them opening our eyes to the greater universe. Everything I’d seen had brought more heartache. None of this had solved our problems, as some believed extraterrestrials would do for mankind.

  The uploading became a madhouse. There were massed body-jams in the corridors. The hanger bays were a giant mob of shouting, pushing troopers cramming themselves into the dropships. This place tore down our discipline.

  I shoved my way aboard with my zagun with me. I was still linked to the admiral.

  “Well, are we near?” I asked him.

  “Commander Creed,” Venturi said, “I wish to state for the lore masters that you are a unique individual. I find you loathsome, yet filled with courage and a Lokhar’s heart. The oracle was right to summon you. Soon, we shall pass through the portal. I do not believe I will live once we begin the landings.”

  “Come with us,” I said. “Join the surface attack.”

  “I cannot,” Venturi said. “I am the admiral.”

  “I know you play by the rules. And normally, for you at least, that’s good. Why not change the rules this time?”

  “No,” he said, in a stern voice. “I am the Supreme Lord Admiral. With the authority comes responsibly. A Lokhar knows this. I will fight from the bridge where I belong. I refuse to desert my post and give my duty to another.”

  “You’re a tough Lokhar, sir,” I said.

  “I am sending Doctor Sant to you. In fact, I believe he has already boarded one of your assault boats.”

  “We welcome him,” I said. “Admiral, there is something else. If you will permit me, I have a few battle suggestions.”

  “I am still,” Venturi said.

  I wasn’t, as a mob almost shoved me off my feet. I felt elbows jab my back and the toes of boots kick my calves. I pushed back even as I spoke:

  “Look, I know you hate the T-missiles. No, that isn’t right. You hated my first suggestion. Now I think you should use them to pepper the inside of the portal planet. If there are Kargs inside, waiting for us, you need to pop those thermonuclear warheads amongst them. Try to create a lane for us to the Forerunner artifact.”

  “Yes, that is a wise suggestion,” Venturi said.

  “Another thing,” I said, “but it’s going to sound heartless.”

  “Speak.”

  “You’ve seen the Karg numbers. It’s crazy. Overload your landers with legionaries. You’re only going to get one wave down there. Use that to get as many legions down as you can. Once you’ve done that, I’m sure the Kargs are going to turn every graviton ray in range on your ship.”

  “I will attack them with ferocity,” Venturi said.

  “You could, but I wouldn’t. You risk disablement and capture that way. We can’t afford having the Kargs get your universe-ripping equipment. With all that said, you can also aid us in a better manner.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Once our first assault wave is in space,” I said, “you need to build up as great a speed as possible with those dreadnoughts. Then you need to ram the planet as close to our landing zones as possible. Fire nukes as you go down, but use the giant ships to wipe out two vast areas. That might give us just a little more time to burrow into the world and start the journey down.”

  “You are heartless,” Venturi said.

  “I didn’t think you’d like the idea.”

  “No,” he said. “It is brilliant. But if I do this, Commander Creed, you must swear to me that you will make it to the Forerunner artifact and cause it to go elsewhere.”

  “I’m going to try my damndest,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “I want you to swear you will succeed.”

  “I can’t know that.”

  “Swear it, Commander Creed. Let me know that my sacrifice will be for a higher purpose.”

  “Swear it,” Ella tol
d me.

  I hadn’t realized she was here. She clutched an ammo bag against her suited chest. She must have filled it to capacity, because it kept moving, squirming. I frowned at her.

  “Commander Creed,” Venturi said over my helmet-comm.

  “Okay,” I said in a grim voice. “I’m going to swear to you, Prince-Admiral Venturi of Orange Tamika, of the Avenging Arm of Lokhar. I swear with all my heart to battle down to the Forerunner artifact and make it go where no man has gone before.”

  “By the Great Maker, swear it,” Venturi said.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I can’t do that.”

  “You do not believe in Him?”

  “I do,” I said, “but I believe it’s wrong to swear by His Name.”

  “Ah…” Venturi said. “Thank you, Commander, thank you. We Lokhars also believe that. Now I know the oracle choose wisely. The portal approaches. I have never wanted to leave a place more than this forsaken universe. Too many Kargs have already made it through. But so many more are coming. It will be a pleasure besting these foul creatures.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. The fun was about to begin.

  -23-

  This was my Battle of Armageddon phase one. It was terrible and glorious. It was sick, mad, lovely, awe-inspiring and gut wrenching as only commandos and dirt-grubbing infantrymen riding landing craft can understand.

  Each era of war has its bloody hazards. Who is to say which is the worst? Imagine marching in a line with your buddies during World War One across no man’s land. Machine gun fire mows down hundreds on your side so they topple like trees. Artillery shells knock down even more. Then you have to crawl through enemy barbed wire, where you hang like a fool until you die, torn by shrapnel. Or imagine yourself with a sword in hand during the Third Punic War against Carthage as you charge the city wall. You reach a siege ladder and scramble up as the defenders pour boiling oil on your head and your skin melts from your face.

  War! What is it good for? Well, it’s good for businessmen making munitions. It’s good for dirty politicians who need people to think about something else. It also helps getting rid of bastards and evil empires. Sometimes it can even save your space-time continuum.

  Crammed to the gills, our assault boat lifted off the hanger floor. The engines thrummed so the deck plate vibrated against our boots, a good sound and feeling. We were done with our puking due to reentering hyperspace. The grim despair had departed, and that was a fantastic relief.

  “Power up,” I said, and the outer boat cameras showed us what went on around the vessel. I put that on the dropship’s main screen in front, as if it was an airplane movie. Ella sat beside me on a crash-seat. Other troopers sat at our feet and few more were in front. The rest of the extras jammed into the aisles.

  The boat was still in the belly of Indomitable. Well, the landing craft wasn’t in the belly exactly, but in one of the huge hanger bays, as I’ve said.

  A collective “Ahhh…” filled the assault boat. On the screen we saw hundreds of other dropships like ours. Each was a sleek armored tube with landing skids, a big exhaust port and sides ready to explode open. We used a rugged Lokhar boat, with an Orange Tamika sword emblem blazoned on the sides. Taken all together, our hanger bay held half the Earthmen ready to rock and roll against the Kargs.

  “Switching to an outer scan,” our pilot, N7, said.

  He shouldn’t have done that. The good cheer evaporated. I could feel morale drop like lead in a lake.

  First, we saw Defiant. Then we saw giant Karg snowflake-ships. I’d say there were twenty of them between the great metallic planet below and us. Our two-vessel flotilla had pulled away from the stream of ships exiting the portal every few minutes. One thing that helped slow the flow was the size of the portal. A giant Karg ship couldn’t fit through. It meant the snowflake-shaped craft split into component moth-ships, zipped through and reformed on the other side. We could barely make out the portal and a last glimpse of the hell-universe on the other side.

  None of us looked there long. As our two dreadnoughts nudged out of line and moved toward the metallic planet, the Karg vessels in our way began to disintegrate. The moth-ships—the fighting vessels—were getting ready to engage us, was my feeling.

  I’d come to appreciate what the Kargs did with their moth-ships. The snowflake-vessel had a skeleton and a vast engine. I imagine all the moth-ships, once docked on the skeleton, added their power to the thrusters. That gave the snowflake-vessel its greater motive energy. Once the moth-ships detached, I suspect they had slower rates of acceleration and burned up fuel faster. Why otherwise fly linked together like that?

  More Karg super-ships between the planet and us began breaking down into the smaller moth-ships. A few already turned to face us.

  “Oh boy,” I muttered. “It looks like the welcoming committee is on the ball.”

  “Commander Creed,” my headphones said. I wore a helmet. We all did in here. Admiral Venturi was on the line.

  I chinned my comm-unit. “I’m right here.”

  “We will offload you now,” Venturi said.

  “There’re some Karg vessels between us and the planet,” I said.

  “Yes,” Venturi said. “Good luck, Commander Creed. Remember your oath to me.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “I pray the Great Maker grants you victory.”

  “Roger that,” I said.

  As we spoke, the Lokhars began the attack. They’d learned one trick from me. When working for Claath in the Sigma Draconis attack, we assault troopers had stormed a Lokhar Planetary Defense Station. In it, we’d found a teleportation missile. After gutting the thermonuclear warhead, we’d teleported straight out of the PDS into Claath’s flagship. We hadn’t launched the missile first to fly in space.

  Instead of launching the T-missiles outside of the dreadnoughts, the Lokhars launched them from within Indomitable and Defiant.

  Even as the dropships began to disgorge from the giant hanger bay, the first T-missile left the dreadnought.

  I watched on our main screen. I imagine we all did. There was nothing else to do except worry, and that wasn’t any fun. T-missiles began materializing among the disintegrating snowflake-vessels. Seconds later, massive thermonuclear explosions made our presence fully known.

  Cheers erupted in our boat, and I realized I shouted the loudest of all. We pumped our fists in the air.

  “The Lokhars and Earthmen are among you!” I roared. “It’s time for you to fear.”

  Our dropship passed through the huge hatch, leaving the hanger bay for good as we accelerated directly for the atomic flowers blossoming into existence. A nifty byproduct of teleporting nukes was that if one timed it right one could send them in one right after another. The first warhead didn’t destroy the next one because it wasn’t there yet, and the EMP blast had already washed the area and moved on when the next warhead finally did materialize.

  Admiral Venturi did the opposite of encroaching artillery fire. In ground combat, there’s a dangerous way to help masses of troops attack the enemy. That’s to have the artillery shells “walk” toward the enemy line. As those shells fall closer and closer, friendly troops follow. It had to be done perfectly, though. And that took lots of training or many battles to learn how to get it right. Because what often happened was friendly shells fell on friendly advancing troops, and that made infantry bloody angry.

  Here, Venturi started close to us and had the T-missiles appear farther and farther out as the dropships headed for the portal planet.

  This was called running the gauntlet in the worst possible way. The T-missiles killed many Karg moth-ships in our flight path, but didn’t get all of them. The survivors started beaming our assault boats.

  That was the right move for them.

  Even as we drove in, stubby Lokhar fighters accelerated ahead of us. They engaged their particle beams from too far out, probably to get the enemy’s attention. A few of the fighters carried missiles, launching them at the mot
h-ships.

  I had a feeling what it must have been like during D-Day onto the Normandy coast of German-occupied France. Screaming shells, spouts of cold ocean water soaking you and the terrible rocking of the landing craft, making you spew because of seasickness. This was better and this was worse. We didn’t rock. We watched the bigger battle, and we couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Troopers began shouting with rage. I let them. They had to let out steam somehow. Better to rave than to despair.

  Lokhar fighters flew to their doom, taking the battle to the moth-ships. If the Kargs ignored them, the fighters pumped particle streams into the giant ships. If the red rays destroyed fighters with pathetic ease that at least meant for the moment, the enemy left the assault boats alone. Only one thing counted in this battle: us getting to the center of the planet.

  Indomitable’s heavy laser and their host of short-range particle beams now came into play. This was like a giant game of chicken, with two sides roaring at each other and with riders blazing shotgun blasts and rifle fire at the enemy. There wasn’t much finesse, unless you figure drawing a knife and shoving your arm down a roaring lion’s throat to get to his heart is crafty tactics.

  We advanced. We died. Fighters died. Moth-ships died and the two mighty dreadnoughts accelerated.

  As we did all this—hopefully, materializing T-missiles into the metal planet—Karg ships began converging on the two main interlopers.