The anuvi incident, p.26
The Anuvi Incident, page 26
The Marines dug the trench four meters wide and three meters deep. The Marines constructed platforms at the edge of the trench on which they could stand. The platoon had dragged a Gorgon defensive gun from the belly of the Varano up the ridge and set it up on a rotating platform on the bottom of the trench. The motorized platform stood on rods of steel stuck into the ground and allowed the heavy weapon to be rotated quickly. The Gorgon was a heavy plasma projector with five four meter long barrels; it fired up to five pulses of superheated matter per second. A Marine could plug the firing computer into the HUD of her suit and fire it at anything in her field of vision.
The sixteen platoons of the battalion occupied positions on top of the ridges surrounding the tower no more than three hundred meters from the tower, and no more than two hundred meters from each other. Each emplacement had one of the Gorgon defensive guns, plus a number of other defensive weapons: TAC-4A armor piercing rocket launchers that stood on tripods and plugged into the HUD of the battlesuits, smoke and glitter grenades to deflect laser fire, and several of the TAC Flamingo heavy plasma grenades, so called because of the pink plasma explosive field with a five meter radius. For the most part Marines used these heavy weapons for defensive use.
The tower stood on a ragged rock over a kilometer in diameter and thirty meters high. The rock seemed to be the nexus of a series of ridges and valleys trending northeast – southwest. The valleys to the northwest and southeast were tens to several hundred meters wide, but moving out from the tower the valleys grew narrower, until about ten kilometers away the ridges disappeared completely. Beyond, a flat plain of sand and ragged scrub stretched out in all directions.
“Okay, ladies and gents!” Karadjian called out. “The spineys have landed! Command believes there is at least a brigade of armor, since they did not make an air drop over the tower. That’s several hundred vehicles, most of which are probably warwalkers! Now, the spineys ain’t too stupid, because it looks like they’re going to assault us from the east and west, rather than funneling through the valleys where we can pick ‘em off from the heights.”
Nineteen Marines remained in First Platoon. Karadjian walked down the line of the trench. “I want interlocking fields of fire over two hundred and seventy degrees to the northwest centered on the Gorgon. Private Carvalho!”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“You got a good eye; you take the Gorgon. Concentrate your fire on where the legs of the walkers join the body. That’s the weak spot!”
“Sir. Yes, sir!” Blade climbed into the seat of the gun and plugged in.
“Corporal Delacroix!”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“You get the rocket launcher! Corporal Ivanova will take care of your ammo. You got a dozen rockets, so use them wisely. Same target as the Gorgon.”
“The rest of you keep your cover and only fire when the walkers get within a hundred meters. Use your grenade launchers.”
“Sir. Yes, sir!” the platoon called out.
“Just a minute Marines!” Karadjian’s hand moved to the side of his helmet. “Seems the spineys are gonna soften us up first. Incoming fighters! Two minutes!”
The Marines stooped in the trenches.
“Private Carvalho! You take out as many as those God-damn fighters as you can!”
“Sir, yes sir!” The gun motors whined as she swung the barrels of the weapon up and pointed them at the sky.
Multiple sonic booms sounded and echoed off of the ridges and the tower. The evening sky turned a dark purple, and a multitude of stars covered the darkening sky in a carpet of shiny diamonds. Completely clear, the sky held not even a wisp of cloud. The tower looked like a black pillar set against the setting gas giant. Putz poked his head up above the edge of the trench. In the distance to the east he could barely see a multitude of small dark wedges moving toward them. Scores, hundreds of them filled the eastern sky.
All of a sudden the wedges erupted with fire. Green lances stabbed the ridges and valleys and even the tower. White blobs of plasma streaked from the approaching craft and exploded on the ground. Putz ducked just as one of the blobs exploded near the trench. Dirt and rocks rained down on the Marines. Putz heard the whine of the gun motors as Blade rotated and lifted the gun. Rapid thunder claps filled the air as Blade sent bolts of super-heated plasma streaking into the sky. Putz looked around; thousands of white bolts filled the sky as the guns tracked their targets. A red lance of fire arced up from the Varano, obliterating one of the fighters. He saw more of the fighters hit; knocked off their flight path, they tumbled and screamed down to the surface, exploding in red and orange balls of fury.
Another burst of plasma hit near the trench, covering Putz with a shower of debris. Three green lances of fire struck the side of the trench near the Gorgon, the water in the soil rapidly boiling, rocks splitting with the energy of the strike. Blade kept up the fire; a fine mist formed around the gun as its cooling system strained. Putz’s battlesuit sensed heat of the gun from several meters away. The air filled with claps, fizzes, high pitched whines, and explosions.
A massive explosion blew Putz to the bottom of the trench. Alarms sounded in his ears and his HUD lit up with warnings. The air filled with black smoke. He stood and looked toward the Gorgon. Something cut the barrels short; the metal glowed orange hot. He ran to look for Blade and found a torso face down at the foot of the gun on the platform. It missed both legs and an arm; the armor blackened and smoking.
Blade! No!
“Look sharp, Marines!” Sergeant Karadjian barked. “Incoming!”
Putz scrambled to the edge of the trench, stepped over a few more prone Marines, and looked out. Completely dark, he flipped on his night vision, which cast the landscape in an eerie greenish purple glow. Several hundred meters away six warwalkers climbed to the top of a ridge, their long legs stretched out. With a whoosh, a rocket streaked from the trench and bounced off the heavy armor of one of the walkers.
“Aim for the legs, God-damn it!”
A few moments later another rocket shot from the trench and struck the same walker. The missile blew off the leg, but the vehicle kept coming, along with the rest. All at once the vehicles opened up with plasma rockets; streams of smoke climbed into the sky.
“INCOMING!”
A rapid series of explosions pounded the trench. Putz dug into the bottom of the trench. The remains of the Gorgon fell on top of him. His strength servos whined as he pushed off the wreckage. The remains of several Marines littered the bottom of the trench. Greenie and Ivanova crawled out from under a few corpses.
Greenie stooped and righted the rocket launcher. “It’s still rockin’! Load her up!” Ivanova picked a rocket out of the crate and shoved it in the back of the launcher.
Putz looked toward the far ridge. The walkers had almost reached the bottom of the ravine when fire erupted from the top of the ridge.
“Those are the spiney assault troops,” Karadjian yelled. “Open up!”
A rocket streaked from the trench and hit one of the warwalkers in the right rear leg. A moment later the vehicle went up in a ball of flame. The remaining Marines fired at the assault troops on the opposite ridge with laser fire and grenades. Another volley of plasma rockets shot up from the walkers. Putz dove to the bottom of the trench; the very air seemed to explode around him. His HUD lit up with warnings.
“WE’RE FUCKING OFF, MARINES!”
Putz climbed to the top of the trench and leapt toward the tower. His tactical display showed seven others from the platoon already about a hundred meters in front of him. Large wedge shaped ships flew overhead and dropped small dark shapes.
“Move it, Peretz!”
A hundred meters from the tower, a squad of Naati landed not twenty meters behind him; they fired lasers and blasters and lobbed grenades. Putz leapt up and gunned his flight pack. Green and red beams followed him as he flew to the base of the tower. He landed at the base of the tower and turned to look down. Almost twenty warwalkers already reached the base of the rock; scores of Naati troops milled about on the valley floor.
He turned and ran into the tunnel. He engaged his flight pack and flew down the narrow space; he emerged into a large chamber and slammed into some equipment like a bullet. Alarms blared in his ears, and his HUD flashed red.
“Over here, Sergeant!”
Putz looked up and saw Karadjian beckoning to him from beyond some equipment. He stood in a group of Marines. Small furry creatures shuffled across the floor away from him. Putz rolled over and stood up. One of the legs of his armor felt stiff and damaged, and he limped across the smooth floor, following Karadjian for several hundred meters. Darkness filled the chamber, so the remaining Marines switched on their helmet lights.
Dacha
Subaltern Dacha’s lungs burned, but he kept running, the hunter’s rage pounding in his brain as he and his platoon scrambled up the ridge.
“Move to the right, you krugs!” Jaks barked. “Flank the tower from the north!”
The platoon slid down the ridge and onto the floor of the ravine. Out of formation now, they ran in ragged groups toward the next ridge. A few moments later they began to climb the next ridge. Yips and yowls of glee filled his communicator.
Fresh meat!
Dacha, Yennip, Vikus, Koldak and Linnik dropped down into a trench. Dacha saw several armored bodies piled on the bottom. Two Marines lay prone on the ground, their suits ragged with punctures and breeches, their helmets blown off; their heads red with wounds. They looked up at Dacha and moaned.
“Time for some KIPLING!” Dacha walked up to the two wounded male humans and raised his massive pistol. “When you’re wounded and dying on the Afghan plain;” BOOM! He shot the creature in the head, which disappeared in a spray of blood, brains, and bone. Dacha took a few steps to the next one.
“And the women come out to cut up your remains;” BOOM! He shot at the pelvis of the creature; it screamed in horror and agony as the massive bullet shredded the leg from its body in a spray of red gore.
“Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,” BOOM! He shot the human in the head.
“And go to your god like a soldier!”
Dacha stood and climbed to the top of the ridge. Yennip, Vikus, and Koldak used their plasma torches to cut open a battlesuit. They reached into the suit and pulled forth a wriggling human female, ripping the creature apart as it screamed in terror. He looked up at the tower and shook his fist.
“As the fifth Henry said: ‘in a moment look to see; The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand; Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters!’”
He turned and saw Linnik and another footrifle pulling a male human out of his battlesuit. One stood on the human’s chest, while the other used the butt of his rifle to crack open the hommie’s head.
“Hah!” he screamed. “Your fathers taken by their silver beards; And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls!”
Two footrifles ran by with the torsos of humans on their long bladed weapons, the dull gray armor spattered with crimson blood. “Your naked infants spitted upon pikes!” Dacha raised a fist and shook it toward the tower. “What say you!? Will you yield, and this avoid; Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroy'd!?”
Cavanagh
“Have the Marines pulled back?” Cavanagh asked. They had moved to the second level of the tower and set up a portable holographic projector and command console just outside the main elevator. The wounded lay on power stretchers scattered around the elevator. Pockets of crew huddled together comforting each other.
“Yes, Captain,” McFinn answered, looking at his pockcomp. “All surviving Marines are in the tower.”
“Surviving…” Cavanagh murmured. “Is Colonel Hadida with them?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Cavanagh touched her communicator. “Colonel Hadida? We’re going to blow the reactors. Get as many Marines in the elevator as possible. Thirty seconds.”
The communicator crackled. “Will the tower hold?”
“Don’t know, but we’ve got to do this now!” Cavanagh stepped up to the console. She looked up at McFinn and smiled. “Ready?”
“Do it,” McFinn said.
Moosta
“We’ve overcome their defenses, Lord Commissar.” Arch-Commander Kodol’s holographic image saluted. “A third of the division is moving into position around the base of the tower. I am forming assault parties to climb the rock and look to see where the humans entered the structure.”
“Excellent, Kodol. Gain entry as soon as you can. How long before the rest of the division is in position?”
“I give it…”
The image disappeared, and alarms sounded on the command deck. “What’s happening?” Moosta growled.
“A massive explosion, Lord Commissar.”
“What!?” He did not like to lose composure in front of his subordinates, but he did not like surprises.
“The human vessel and the yallic scientific vessel exploded.”
Monkey trickery!
He should have foreseen this; in the back of his mind he knew the assault proceeded far more smoothly than it should, but he ignored his fears because they frightened him. Now the division was all but destroyed. “Is the tower destroyed?”
“No, Lord Commissar. It still stands.”
Incredible! “Regroup the fleet in orbit and withdraw the fighters. Command the remains of the assault division to withdraw to a safer position.”
Bandele
Bandele woke. He sat on the floor, his back against the dais. Just above him Dundas still stood in the massive chair manipulating the holographic images above. Reams of glyphs and symbols filled the air interspersed with diagrams and cutaways of the moon.
“How long was I asleep?” he asked, getting to his feet.
“Several hours,” Ferrel said. She also sat on the floor, her knees drawn up to her face, arms around her legs. She looked like a child, her eyes wide, and a wide smile on her face. The entire inner surface of the sphere pulsed with icons and glyphs. Sometimes one, sometimes tens, or hundreds, zoomed inward just above the chair. Glyphs, symbols, and other images floated through the air, sometimes following straight paths, sometimes seemingly falling out of place, sometimes combining with the holographic icons.
“Have we found anything new?”
“Oh yes,” she said. She looked at him and smiled.
“What?”
Beckenbaur appeared, looking up at the holographs. “The Harbingers managed to stop the convection of the mantle.” His eyes looked shiny, like diamonds, reflecting the icons floating above. “That is how they could drill to the core.”
“How?”
“Powerful gravity fields,” Dundas answered. Bandele looked up at him and Dundas continued. “Each of the spheres is a powerful gravity manipulator, a reactionless drive writ huge.”
“Reactionless drive!? You mean…”
“The entire moon can move.”
“Move!?”
“That is why they need to tap the power of the core,” Beckenbaur said, looking up at the dance of light. “There are a thousand careers in geology right here!”
“How is it controlled?”
“Dr. Batista said the Harbingers were powerful psionicists,” Ferrel said. She pointed at the half-sphere suspended above the throne. “That can be moved down; presumably over the head of whatever creature sits in the chair.”
A tone sounded and a flashing icon appeared above the tower on the holographic image of the moon. Dundas looked up from the massive chair, then down at the holographic controls on the arms of the chair. The yallic chirped and warbled; two sat on Dundas’s massive shoulders on either side of his head, pointing at the holographic controls.
“Seems there was a massive explosion on the surface,” Dundas said.
“Is the installation damaged?”
“No, sir. The tower is still standing.”
Part V: Events of Import
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not withstanding, go out and meet it.
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
Moosta
“We’ve received a transmission from some yallic,”
Arch-Commander Gavanus contacted Moosta from the command deck of the battle platform Claw Gore. Moosta didn’t look at Gavanus’ image on the holoprojector; he stood on the command deck of Throat Ripper looking out of the massive windows down onto the moon.
“We’ve received a transmission from some yallic, Lord Commissar,” Gavanus said. “It seems they are from the Parnian fleet. They are working with the humans but surreptitiously contacted our own yallic vessels.”
Irony of ironies; the slave willingly helps the master. “What information do they have?” It was two of the moons days since the homs detonated the reactors of the human and the yallic vessel, almost completely destroying the 15th Assault Division.
“They have sent a schematic of the installation. Apparently, it extends deep below the surface.” Moosta turned and saw a holograph of the installation appear on the command deck.
Moosta looked at it, his eyes wide. “Is this it?” he gasped. “What does it do?”
“The yallic report it is a massive gravity manipulator, similar to a reactionless drive.”
“What is its purpose?”
“Alone, it can do little, but when it works with the other similar installations buried across the face of the moon,” a holographic image of the moon appeared showing the location of fifteen more, “an operator within the control room of the installation can move the entire moon wherever he wills.”
