Eye of the Storm Page 3

  Make that a few hundred thousand normals. All the tunnels were defended by God Kings. His division commanders hadn't sent the intel on but he was picking it up on a tertiary feed. Everybody was running into the same thing.

  This was going to be a bloodbath. And not in the skin-soothing, life-extending, "send me a hundred virgins" way.

  And nobody was any farther than Julio. Initial penetrations were held all along the line and too many troops were still out in the open.

  Mike composed the intel and fed it down, then paused, very briefly, to think.

  "Rubble-dubble all openings, Shelly. Multi-entry, heavy. Boot on them, don't piss," he muttered to his AID. "Julio."

  "Señor?" the private said, shakily.

  "Hold what you got," Mike said. "Keep tossing subars. Rawls, rubble-dubble, now!"

  "Roger," the sergeant said, pulling out another grenade. He pinged the rest of the Hammers and the group all shoved grenades as deep into the rubble as their arms would go, retracting fast. O'Neal, again, had invented the rubble-dubble technique and once upon a time it was dangerous before suits developed an engineering database that could determine trap points. At least one poor bastard had had his hand blown off when he couldn't pull his arm back in time. But that problem had been solved long ago.

  All six of the grenades were detonated on signal and the rubble wall more or less evaporated. The explosion threw one of the Hammers off his feet, but everyone else was cocked and locked.

  "Let's roll," Mike said, heading for the opening. "There's Posleen ass to kick."

  "And you get to roll behind us, sir," Sergeant Rawls said, jumping into the opening.

  "Spoilsport."

  Julio paused at the intersection of the connecting tunnel and looked back. His section, which had ended up collapsing two bunkers for zero openings, had made it across the killing zone to follow the general. But his section head had sent him a quick ping telling him to stay with the Hammers.

  That should have meant that his section was out in front and he was following behind. Instead, true to form, the general was on point. Damn it. Which put him at an intersection that was probably going to be crawling with fire.

  "C kilo subars," the general said, palming one of the devices and sliding his armored thumb down the blank face until the readout showed an output equivalent to one hundred kilos, about two hundred twenty pounds, of TNT. "X form. Hammers, right. Bravo Section right. Double stack."

  Julio thumbed a grenade himself, dialing it down, then felt a slight thump as someone bumped into him from behind, forming a "stack" of troopers. As soon as the grenades went off, the stack would rush the corridor to the right. He glanced over and saw Corporal Kermit Butler on the point of the left-hand stack.

  "Which way are we throwing?" Kermit pinged.

  "X form, Corp," Julio replied. "I'm throwing your way. So you sure as hell better be throwing mine."

  "On my mark," O'Neal said. "Three, two, one, Mark!"

  Julio realized it was the general right behind him as he threw the grenade. He threw it hard; as the first guy in the stack he had the best chance of getting it far down the corridor.

  The general threw one as well, then shoved him, hard.

  Julio thought he was crazy. The grenades were on a three-second delay, which meant they would be running right up on Kermit's grenade as they entered the corridor.

  But as he rounded the corner he saw the general was crazy like a fox. There were four emplaced positions along the corridor but the defenders had seen the antimatter grenades skitter down the corridor. Julio actually caught a flash from one of the defender's hypervelocity missile launchers as the Posleen ducked back to avoid the explosion and the wash of antimatter. A mechanical shutter dropped over the hole, closing it entirely.

  Julio felt a hand on his shoulder, an almost irresistible pressure, as the general pinged in his ear.

  "Down, son," the general said. "Take it on your helmet," he added, pressing the private down and forward.

  The explosion, at this range, was almost as bad as the casta round. And he saw his suit counter drop, hard. His armor had taken a serious hit from the antimatter. But he also was within a step of one of the armored positions.

  He followed a karat, leading him to a position farther down the line. The armored door slid back before he'd taken two steps, though, and he paused, dropping slightly, and targeted the small opening.

  Most of the rounds careened off to one side or another but a few got through. The wash of fire out of the opening was unnoticeable compared to the explosions to either side but it was apparently enough. No fire came down the corridor at him.

  He'd automatically blanked the surrounding fire but all four of the defense points in their direction were down. The same could not be said of the far end of the corridor, however, where his section was getting hammered.

  "I said boot don't piss on them," the general muttered on the local net. "Raw—"

  "On it, sir," Sergeant Rawls said as an HVM ripped Kermit apart.

  "And what do we have here . . . ?"

  Mike looked down the right-hand corridor, depending on Sergeant Rawls to get Julio's former section in gear on clearing their side. The corridor curved, again, which meant there were probably more defense points down it. However, it was also going to have access to both the surface and the deeper areas where the Posleen commanders, and their forges, must reside.

  Intel had shown no Posleen moving on the surface since the redoubt was invested. So everything had to move around underground. The problem was, there were a billion ways to defend a position like this. God Kings in sealed bunkers barely scratched the surface.

  However, they were inside. They'd keep digging until all the rats were gone.

  Chapter Two

  See the door that lies before you

  And know this too shall pass

  The confrontation of your fears

  In strength drawn from the past

  —

  Crüxshadows

  "Eye of the Storm"

  The Ceel Banash looked at the encoded message and then took a deep breath, calling upon a calming mantra to keep from becoming too angry or excited.

  Banash was a Darhel, the most politically powerful race in the Galactic Federation. Like all other races but humans, the Darhel were quite strictly nonviolent. However, unlike the bat-faced Indowy, the crablike Tchpth and the elusive Himmit, the Darhel were not pacifists by choice. Long before, they had entered an agreement with a godlike race called the Aldenata. In exchange for being lifted from their nuclear scarred homeworld, the Darhel would renounce violence. The Darhel had agreed immediately, knowing that any agreement is worth exactly the value of the paper it's written upon.

  The Aldenata, however, were ancient and, while aggressively idealistic, well aware of the concept of treachery. The agreement said that the Darhel would be nonviolent and the Aldenata made them that way. If any Darhel became excessively violent, even became overexcited, much less killed another creature, a chemical switch went off, effectively lobotomizing them. The effect was called "lintatai" and every adult Darhel struggled against it every day. For Darhel were inherently violent, a warrior race that had been thrust into passivity will they, nil they.

  The Darhel, however, had learned to channel their focus and fury. Unable to conquer through force of arms, they had taken to politics and business like a buzz saw. Over a bare five hundred years they had gained absolute control over the workings of the Federation, to the point that nothing happened without their approval.

  However, every power has its weaknesses. The Ceel was only a junior Darhel executive but he knew a few of them. The Epetar Clan-corp had only recently been utterly destroyed by a group of lucky human rebels who managed to catch them on the wrong side of a leveraged investment. He had, however, just been apprised of a very crucial weakness, one so dangerous it could spell the end of all Darhel power. And he'd been handed the slippery end of the stick.

  His first thought, once h
e assimilated the mess he'd been dropped in, was to wonder who hated him enough to do this to him. Darhel were the essence of acooperative; business among the Darhel was if anything slightly more abusive than anything the Darhel practiced on other races. Darhel could not kill but they were more than happy to contract out the occasional assassination. Back-stabbing and character assassination were considered simply good business. Banash, therefore, had to assume that someone had it in for him.

  He had been told he was being sent to this dirtball to make the arrangements for rehabilitation of the planet. That was good business, short-term and minor costs for very long-term high-profit annuities, and he would have both personal gain from it and enhanced status in his clan-corp. When he'd been given the position he'd nearly had lintatai from surprise. He should have known it was a trap. An ancient bit of Darhel folk wisdom was virtually identical to a human one: If it's flat it's mined, if it's rocky it's covered by fire and if it's easy it's a trap. It said much of Ancient Darhel that this was only three words.

  Steps must be taken and they had to be taken fast. But, however much control the Darhel exercised on a strategic and political level, they had far, far less when it came to military operations. And the worst was Fleet Strike. Fleet had been quite thoroughly suborned but Fleet Strike continued to act as if the universe cared about things like justice and honor. And then there was the Agreement with the military. Violating the Agreement was guaranteed suicide. So direct methods were out.

  That left subtlety. But first to lay the groundwork.

  Mike silently cursed as his AID pinged a message from Admiral Suntoro. The admiral was in charge of Task Force Induri, the fleet of ships that had assaulted the world. But unlike previous battles in history where "navies" had transported forces to a world to establish a beachhead, and kept control until the beachhead was well established, he was not and never had been in command of the ground forces. Mike was his military equivalent and senior to him by about ten years. Fleet Strike had established that dichotomy long ago. The Fleet carried Fleet Strike to a world, hammered the hell out of it and then dropped them. After that, the admirals could twiddle their fingers, thank you very much. On the other hand, he had most of Mike's supplies and fire support so Mike had to be marginally nice to him. Like taking his calls in the middle of a battle.

  "Connect," he said. "O'Neal."

  "General O'Neal, this is a disaster," the admiral said without preamble. "Seven SheVa tanks destroyed and over a hundred ACS suits permanently out of commission!"

  Mike noted for the future that the admiral had put it in terms of materials, not the hundred plus dead and scores of wounded. Fleet could care less about casualties; soldiers and sailors were scum and more than disposable. His jaw worked for a moment as he imagined strangling the fat little prick. One of these days he was going to get into a position to screw all the brass in Fleet, and about half the brass in Fleet Strike, extremely hard. And when he did they were going to feel the screwing.

  "Actually, Admiral, this is a battle," Mike replied. "A destroyer moronically bumbling into ground fire it knew was there, on the other hand, is a disaster. When you find an infection you have to cut it out. This one is just particularly deep and hard."

  "I have arranged a conference call in fifteen minutes," the admiral said angrily. "You will be there."

  "I'm in the middle of a murthering great battle, Admiral," Mike snarled. "You have got to be fucking shitting me."

  "The Darhel Ceel will be included. You will be there."

  "Holy fuck," Mike muttered as the admiral cut the connection. He slid his dip over to the far side of his mouth then back then spat it out into the underlayer. "Raw, anything deadly about to happen?"

  "We've got security both ways," the sergeant said nervously. "Why?"

  Mike popped his helmet and took a breath. The O2 sensors had said there was enough oxygen, and while carbon dioxide, monoxide and various trace poisons were high, the air was breathable. He didn't take a big deep breath, though, because it was only barely breathable. What he did get was filled with the incredibly noxious smell of roasted Posleen. Posleen could eat humans but that didn't mean they had terrestrial body chemistry, just a very bizarre one. And when one got cooked it smelled like a burning chemical factory. When it decayed it smelled worse.

  He spit the last bits of chewed-out dip into his helmet, the underlayer gleaning it happily, then pulled out a can of Skoal. There was underlayer gel still coating his head. Once upon a time it would have been crawling back into the helmet but these days it had gotten smart enough to know he was going to put the helmet back on as soon as he had a fresh dip. It stayed away from his face, though, giving him the appearance of wearing a silvery, rippling skullcap.

  He tamped down the can, and nothing could tamp down a can of Skoal like an ACS suit, then pulled out a dip and stuck it between his cheek and gums. The task was as automatic and precise as killing Posleen. Despite the fact that he was dipping with relatively inflexible armored gauntlets, not one scrap hit the floor. He was over eighty years old with the body of a twenty-year-old; unthought actions were so precise they were machinelike.

  He slid the helmet back on, put away the can and then pinged Sergeant Rawls.

  "I have to do a conference in fifteen minutes. Secure this area totally. Get all available units into this corridor and hold it. Press forward as much as you need to to feel secure, then hold that. I'll tell you when I'm done."

  * * *

  The chosen virtual venue was a conference room aboard the cruiser Kagamuska. Some of the people at the conference might have been present. It was Admiral Suntoro's flagship so it made sense if he was really there. And the Darhel Ceel Banash was staying onboard as well.

  But it was impossible to tell. At least to Mike's eyes, viewing from inside an opaque helmet fifty meters underground on the other side of the world from the cruiser, which was in high orbit.

  Admiral Suntoro, the Ceel, Commodore Ajeet—moronic commander of the destroyer task force—and Captain Patrick Vorassi, senior commander of the two massive troop ships that had transported the ACS to the dirtball, were all "present." As well as one pissed off general.

  Mike had chosen to present a virtual "self" in armor, sans scary gargoyle helmet. When he bipped in, the meeting was apparently already in full swing.

  "At least two months to get them here . . ." Captain Vorassi said. Technically Fleet, he spent most of his time transporting Fleet Strike units, both ACS and regular line infantry.

  "The cost of this operation has, hower, become prohibitive," the Darhel Ceel replied, calmly. "Further losses are unjustified when there is a reasonable alternative."

  "Ah, General O'Neal," Admiral Suntoro said, giving Mike an oily smile as if they hadn't just been at loggerheads. "We were discussing an interesting suggestion that Darhel Ceel Banash has presented."

  "Cool," Mike said. "You guys have some trick for taking tunnels? Because so far it's looking like brute force is the best choice."

  "In fact, no," the Darhel said from inside his concealing cowl. Mike had met Darhel before, without their cowls, and knew full well that what was under the hood was a foxlike head with a muzzle full of razor-sharp, sharklike teeth. He wasn't sure how the Darhel ever got around to "we'll ne'er study war no more" but it must have been a hell of a stretch. "Unfortunately, that appears to be the necessity. However, now that the ACS has . . . heroically secured the tunnel entrances, it is perhaps time to call in a . . . less valuable unit."

  "The Ceel suggests that we let the mopping up be performed by the Legion," Admiral Suntoro said. "I think that's a very valuable suggestion, don't you, General?"

  Shortly after the siege of Earth was lifted, the venerable Legion Etrangère had been disbanded. Well, the few survivors had been disbanded. Most of them joined other units and continued the fight. However, shortly after that a "new" unit, copying much of the Legion's methods and even some of its honors, was stood up. The Federation Legion, however, was not the Foreign Legio
n of yore. While the Legion had, often, been a dumping ground for ne'er-do-wells of one sort or another, the Federation Legion enshrined that. The thinking was simple and very, very old. Soldiers are bad. Quite often more demonstrably so. Murderers, drunks, drug addicts, dealers, thieves, rapists. You've spent money training them. Why throw all that money to waste?

  And so the Federation Legion was born. A penal unit, part of Fleet and not Fleet Strike, it was used for every crap job the Fleet had. Mostly it spent its time on really horrible worlds during the mop-up phase of Posleen clearing. Occasionally, it was used in "hard clear" situations like this one. Casualty rates were horrendous and units, within a few years, had over two hundred percent casualties. Most of those, admittedly, were in new arrivals. And, hell, many of them were when the veterans decided that a newbie simply wasn't either criminal enough or good enough to want to have around.