Hive war, p.24
Hive War, page 24
part #4 of Galactic Liberation Series
“Yes,” Sinden replied. “There’s a fort at each pole, designed to cover what the ring couldn’t reach. They’re proving to be tough nuts, the only serious threat to our spacecraft. Captain Smits has rebel tugs shepherding some asteroids this direction, but it’ll take days, maybe weeks, to get them here and aimed to fall on the forts. The good thing is, they can’t control much ground territory.”
“Fair enough. Get Smits in this link, and stay with me.”
Once Smits came on, Straker explained what he wanted his forces to do.
Chapter 23
With the Bortoks, at the Mak Deen’s encampment
Nazeer, Katog and fifty Bortok warriors—including Straker’s sworn men—stared dumbfounded as the boxy Marksman dropship set down just beyond the edge of camp. They tried to hide their astonishment, but they couldn’t. They’d obviously never seen anything like this fifty-meter-long flying building before.
They’d certainly never seen anything like a Jackhammer mechsuit, revealed when the loading doors swung wide.
“Is that a god?” Katog asked.
“No. It’s a machine, like a catapult or water-powered mill. Or like the objects the Magic Men use. It’s just one hell of a lot bigger and more powerful.”
“Do you command it, Azaltar?”
“I do. Let me show you.”
Straker led the warriors into the dropship’s interior. As it was made to hold four mechsuits, there was plenty of room with only the one clamped into its fittings. He placed his palm on the lock pad for the suit to scan, brought his eye to within the ocular reader’s field of vision, and then punched in the open code.
The suit’s overlapping chest plates swung wide, revealing the cockpit. Straker stripped off his chainmail and swung himself into the contoured cutout that enfolded him during battle. He didn’t bother to plug in, but he did close the suit and project his own visage on its meter-wide faceplate.
“This is my ship, my steed of war,” he said. “It’s called a mechsuit.”
“Mek-soot,” the Bortoks echoed.
“I want one, Azaltar,” young Toryak said. “What must I do to have one?”
Straker chuckled, and then sobered. Why not, if the kid had the right physical stats? It was extremely unlikely—one in a million—but it wasn’t impossible.
He opened the suit and dismounted. “Few have the prowess for a mechsuit, even among my own people. A warrior must be blessed with a lucky blend of talents of body and mind. Someday you Bortoks may be given the chance to find out. Until then, though, you’ll have to fight in your own way. But…” Straker picked up his chainmail, “try this on.”
The high-tech chainmail had been cleverly woven to stretch far more than a low-tech steel version would. Even so, it was tight, and Toryak needed the help of his comrades to don it. It fit only because he was small for a Bortok.
Straker plucked a dagger from the belt of one of his men and slashed it across the mail. It didn’t even leave a scratch. “It will serve you well.”
Katog emitted a jealous growl low in his throat.
“Patience, my friend,” Straker said. “The armor is too small for you anyway, but I give you this.” He handed Katog his molecular-edged dagger.
“Thank you, Azaltar,” Katog said, mollified.
When Katog glanced at his sword, Straker shook his head. “Don’t be greedy. This is for the Mak Deen.” He handed the sword to Nazeer. “You may have to modify the hilt to fit your hand, and be careful—the blade will cut steel or stone.”
Nazeer drew out the blade halfway, examining it, before sliding it back in. “It is a kingly gift, brother.”
“And not the last, brother.” To the other nine of his original sworn men, Straker gave useful trinkets from his backpack—a hand light, a duralloy utility knife, a signal mirror. “More and better will come later. Now load up. The trip will be new for you, and unpleasant, but endure it boldly as a Bortok warrior should.”
Ensign Conners, the pilot, showed the Bortoks how to strap in to the auxiliary jumpseats. He then handed out strips of bright safety-orange cloth, brought from the Richthofen, for the Bortoks to wear. As he did, Straker stripped to his skinsuit and mounted his Jackhammer again, feeling the welcome rush of expanded consciousness as he brainlinked.
“You have the mission plan?” he asked Conners.
“Got it, sir.”
“Remember, this is about impressing the locals more than shooting stuff.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Marksman took off and skimmed the surface, flying low. An hour later, it approached the temple at the wall.
The temple seemed puny to Straker, but was no doubt impressive to the locals. It was set with its back against the diz-wall, was made of stone and wood, and could probably hold several hundred within its confines. Half-finished outbuildings and fortifications demonstrated the rapid growth of the complex. Atop it, a spire of sorts climbed the wall. A system of ropes and pulleys hung down from the wall’s top to the spire, allowing commerce and trade.
“Set down right in front. Don’t crush anyone, and stay in the link,” Straker said.
“Aye aye, sir.”
Conners set the Marksman down facing the temple, fifty meters from the nearest building. Workers scurried away like ants while Bortok warriors gathered, trying to appear brave. When the jet wash and dust abated, the warriors advanced cautiously.
“Open the loading doors,” Straker said.
The doors swung wide and the Mak Deen led fifty Bortoks out to face the temple warriors. They marched directly toward the temple, and the locals, after wavering, moved aside.
With his allied Bortoks out of the way, Straker walked his Jackhammer out the doors and stood like a seven-meter metal god, facing the temple. He’d set the smart paint to give him highlights of bright orange, the color of the Derekite movement.
Everyone except his own men stopped to stare.
The Mak Deen and his warriors drove the merchants out of the temple, using the hafts or flats of their weapons, or bashing them with shields. Most were Bortok priests or civilians, but some were various sorts of humans, who must have come here over the wall.
A hue and cry interrupted the process at one building, and Straker saw the Mak Deen’s forces recoil, shields up. Twenty Bortok warriors with distinctive black-and-yellow decorations on their shields rushed out of the building to attack.
“To me!” the Mak Deen roared, calling his scattered men to himself. The enemy warriors rushed at him in a mass.
Straker aimed a gatling and fired three rounds. The bullets, each the size of a Bortok finger, ripped apart three attacking warriors. Where they struck the ground, they threw up bursts of dirt so powerful they knocked down several more. The resulting confusion shocked and delayed them enough for the Mak Deen to gather a dozen warriors and attack the shaken enemy.
Nazeer, head and shoulders above even the other Bortoks, crashed into his foes like they were children, knocking them aside and crushing them with powerful blows of his war-mace. Katog and other warriors waded into battle alongside their leader.
It was over in mere seconds.
A few minutes of searching saw the priests rounded up and brought into the courtyard at the fore of the temple. Straker stood on overwatch, letting Nazeer handle them as per the plan while he checked the top of the wall for snipers or other threats.
A squad of uniformed, human-standard security forces appeared above, carrying weapons. Before they could even aim them, Straker fired a low-powered force-cannon jet into them—weak compared to its usual antitank function, but still powerful enough to instantly incinerate human flesh. Several security personnel burst into flame. A powerpack from one of their weapons blew, and two fell to their deaths, screaming.
After that, there was no more trouble.
Straker had wondered whether it was security forces or Derekites who’d managed the trade from the other side of the wall. Derekites might have made sense, as they’d have wanted to undermine the status quo that kept the dizzes separate and functioning according to plan.
As it turned out, though, the security forces—the agents who enforced the will of the Opters—must have been trying to undermine the Mak Deen’s influence. They’d be trying to break up Bortok unity and send them back to the usual endless warring among themselves and the other groups in that diz. That would keep them subservient to the Opters.
Divide and rule was the Opter way.
With his SAI scanning for threats, Straker turned his attention back to Nazeer and the priests.
“This temple is an abomination,” the Mak Deen said. “The holy writings forbid Bortoks to build houses, that our hearts may always stay on the grasslands and serve Ullach.”
A Bortok—his golden robes were more ornate than the others and indicated he was high priest—stepped forward importantly. “This temple is no house, and so those holy words do not apply, O mighty Mak Deen,” he said. “As you say, your heart is on the grasslands. With respect, I bid you return there and leave us to do the work of Ullach.”
“If this is Ullach’s work, why would Ullach let me come here to threaten it?” the Mak Deen said.
“Ullach allows misfortunes as tests of faith. He may even allow his Mak Deen to stray.”
“Yet surely Ullach would not allow his temple to be destroyed?”
The high priest paused, choosing his words with care. “In the end, all happens according to the will of Ullach, but for a time he allows Shaytan to oppose him, so that all may choose between good and evil. Shaytan is whispering in your ear, O mighty Mak Deen. I beg you not to listen.”
Clever, Straker thought. This priest would out-talk Nazeer if he wasn’t careful. Words were the priests’ home turf, and the Mak Deen couldn’t just chop the guy’s head off. This was a battle of hearts and minds.
But there were other ways to sway hearts and minds. Straker decided to move the plan forward. He raised an arm and loosed a bolt of plasma at the spire, where it rose from the temple roof. The jet undercut the spire, which came crashing down.
“Listen to the words of the Mak Deen,” Straker thundered through his external speakers. “He is the Guided One of Ullach, a warrior of warriors. It is the priests who have become debased, money-grubbing thieves. I, the Azaltar Derek, confirm this.”
Then he strode forward, taking care not to kick or stomp anyone, and burst through the tall closed doors of the temple. They flew off their hinges to crash flat on the floor inside. Straker used his gauntlets to punch holes in the walls. Stones and timber fell atop him, but the duralloy shrugged everything off with hardly a scratch.
He took care not to damage the Mother Stone, a rough cube of crimson rock, about five meters on a side, sitting in the center of the space. Rather, he walked over to shield it from falling debris, which he batted out of the way even as he fired low-power plasma bolts to weaken and demolish the structure.
Five minutes later, he stood in the center of a ruin, next to the undamaged Mother Stone. All who remained in the area gathered to see. Many bowed down in prayer, though whether to the stone or to him, Straker didn’t know.
Straker opened the mechsuit chest plates, showing himself to the awestruck crowd. “Get up! Get up! I am the Azaltar!” he said, loudly. “I am not Shaytan, or any god, only a man using a machine to do the will of Ullach! Too long have the priests stood between the people and Ullach. Too long have the priests dipped their hands into your pockets with every trade. I have destroyed this temple to show you the error of their ways. I will now break a hole in the Wall of the World, so that all who inhabit here, Bortoks and other peoples, will not be confined. Humankind is not meant to be kept in prisons of inhuman making.”
The crowd of hundreds cheered, at first hesitantly, and then more enthusiastically. Soon, all were on their feet.
Straker dismounted to stand on the feet of his mechsuit. This allowed the Mak Deen to meet him at eye level and clasp hands. “It’s all yours, brother,” Straker said. “You will send out your warriors as we discussed?”
“I will send the word, Azaltar, to explore, to conquer our enemies, and to respect all our allies who wear the orange.”
“Excellent. I’ll now take my leave. Give my regards to your sister.”
“Your goodbyes, you mean.”
“Perhaps. Probably... I don’t love her, but… I admire her. Farewell, Mak Deen.”
“Farewell, Liberator.”
With that, Straker remounted and closed up the chest plates. He strode back to the Marksman. His work here was done, and every hour was valuable. “You ready, Conners?”
“Ready, sir.”
Straker clamped in and the dropship rose. He ran his targeting reticle along the wall five hundred meters to the south, until he found a space with nobody there, and specified the target for the Marksman. “Start with some laser fire, just enough to punch a few holes. Give the civilians a chance to evacuate, and see what the security forces do.”
Conners peppered the wall with laser fire, setting off fire alarms and sirens. He didn’t lift the dropship above the wall for fear of exposing it to some kind of heavier weapon within the next diz, so Straker had no idea what was happening on the other side.
After five minutes, Straker decided he’d given everyone a fair chance to run. “Go ahead, Ensign. Blow it down.”
Conners tilted the Marksman, hovering by brute force on thrusters, and fired the dropship’s railgun at the base of the wall. The weapon, designed to kill the largest tanks and blow holes in bunkers, ripped through the wall with ease. A jagged gap the size of a vehicle door appeared.
“Drop me, and then widen that hole with the lasers,” Straker said. A moment later, the bay doors beneath his feet opened and the clamps released him.
He landed lightly on drop jets and walked unhurriedly toward the breach in the wall. The dropship used its lasers to slice away pieces, rapidly widening the hole and the crude tunnel the railgun bullet had created.
When he could see all the way through to the other side, Straker called a halt to the lasers and walked in, weapons ready. Nothing inside the thirty-meter deep wall threatened him, so he used brute force to clear a level, straight path through for the warriors who would follow.
“Okay, Conners, give me some top cover.” Straker stepped out the other side.
An armored security car slashed a light laser across his chest. Its minor sting told Straker of its weakness without checking the numbers. Instinctively, he aimed and fired a three-round gatling burst that punched straight through the vehicle, wrecking it. His SAI scanned for others, but found no threats greater than police with slugthrowers.
Those rapidly retreated out of sight.
“I got air-cars approaching from the east, two klicks,” Conners said. “What are these guys thinking? They’re civilian grade, meat for our weapons, sir.”
“They’re doing their jobs, like all good soldiers,” Straker replied. “Young, loyal, and they think they’re immortal. Kinda like you.”
“But I am immortal.”
“Talk to me when you turn thirty.”
“Okay, grandpa. Sir, I mean.”
Straker rolled his eyes. Aerospace pilots. “Zap them with your lasers, just enough to put their aircars out of action but give them a chance to survive.”
“Roger that, sir.” The Marksman’s lasers, mere point defenses by orbital standards, easily lanced across the two kilometers. The aircars crashed. “Targets neutralized.”
“Anything else dangerous?”
“The recon net says no, nothing heavier than aircars.”
“Then pick me up and let’s go make some more breaches.”
Straker rode the Marksman northward along the wall. Together, they blew holes and carved pathways through it every hundred kilometers or so, until they’d made nine more breaches. By that time, despite a stim, Straker was exhausted, and he knew his pilot was getting tired. He called for other dropship-mechsuit teams to finish the job, punching more holes in the walls of the diz to let the Bortoks out in all directions.
“Okay, Ensign, take us back up to the Richthofen.”
“With pleasure, sir.”
The Marksman raced heavenward, skimming along the outside of the ring until it broke away to cross the short distance to its mother ship parked in orbit above. When they landed on the flight deck, Straker walked his Jackhammer into a service bay and gratefully dismounted.
Commander Sinden met Straker at the flight deck entrance. “Sir, I need to speak to you about something.”
Straker restrained a snarky comment about how respectful she was now that she’d been promoted. He chose to believe she was accepting the situation and acting correctly, rather than just sucking up.
Then again, she had claimed she was a high-functioning sociopath. He’d have to keep an eye on her.
“Did you run it through your chain of command?”
“Captain Smits is too busy.”
“And I’m not?” Straker snapped his fingers. “He didn’t listen, right?”
“He listened, but he didn’t…”
“Didn’t like what you had to say? You’re close to the line here, Sinden. What’s this about?”
Sinden opened a door into a half-empty parts storage room and led him in. “Call it me seeing the admiral on his open-door policy.”
“Okay. You got two minutes, because I’m beat.”
Sinden spoke rapidly. “Look, sir, we almost have the planet. Your Bortoks are already spreading out and my socio-statistical analysis says that will push the population over the edge as the security forces crumble and defect. We own the orbital space, except what’s over the poles—but that’s a big if. The polar strongholds are a cancer that we have to eliminate.”
“Yeah, obviously. What did Smits say?”
“He said don’t worry about it for now.”
“For now?”
“He wants to drop asteroids on them. It’s the safe method as far as risk of casualties go, but they’re weeks out. Anything could happen in the meantime. Besides, impacts big enough to crater the forts will also screw with the ecosystem. Years of winter, caused by untold amounts of material thrown into the air. Disruption of weather patterns, which we can’t control because the ring systems took a lot of damage in the takeover. We can’t afford the crop failures, or the loss of solar energy for years. There are too many people on this planet as it is. Lose even a little capacity, and we’ll have famine and starvation. Billions will die, and the people will want to go back to the good old days of Opter rule.”
