None of them disputed her statement. Mele hadn’t expected any of them to do that, but she had wanted to see how they reacted. To see if any of her new Marines suggested abandoning the militia to their fate. Anyone who would do that might later decide to abandon their fellow Marines.
But they just sat, quietly absorbing her words or looking toward the militia.
“We can try teaching them a few things,” Yoshida finally suggested. “How long do we have?”
Mele nodded approvingly before checking the time on her pad. “We’ve got two hours left before the estimated time the invasion fleet gets close enough to the planet to start dropping shuttles.”
“When will they try to send shuttles here, Captain?” Buckland asked.
“You know, I may look like I know everything, but I don’t.” Mele tried looking for information in some other parts of Major Brazos’s command net. “Ah, this will help. It’s a look at the outside, where the ships are operating. There’s the enemy destroyer. If Commodore Geary is right, when that destroyer lines up to hit Shark, it will be our warning that the enemy is about to send shuttles here.”
Corporal Giddings looked up from his own pad and around at the food stalls. “Excuse me, Captain,” he said as he got up.
“What’s he up to?” Mele asked Corporal Gamba as they watched Giddings walk quickly to an unobtrusive stall whose lack of decoration implied either a bare-bones operation or one so well-off that it could ignore the need to try to impress potential customers.
After a couple of minutes, Giddings walked back, unsuccessfully trying to look casual despite the bulging bag he was now carrying.
“Open up,” Mele ordered. Inside the bag was . . .
“Chocolate,” Lamar whispered.
Mele pulled out one of the bars and examined it. “Old-Earth-origin chocolate. Do you rob banks on the side, too? How much do these things cost?”
“They told us everything was on the house,” Giddings said defensively.
“These are all the bars they had?”
“Yes, Captain. I was able to remotely pop the lock on their storage.”
Corporal Gamba spoke up. “We shouldn’t leave them for the enemy, Captain. That would be wrong.” The other enlisted Marines nodded in solemn agreement.
“It would be,” Mele agreed. She looked around the food court, counting the militia members present. “Giddings, you and Gamba divide up those bars into enough pieces for everyone in this area.”
“Everyone?” Lamar asked plaintively.
“Yeah, everyone.” Mele stood up to attract attention. “Hey! Kosatka militia! Come on over. We got something special here.”
As the militia and the Marines shared the unexpected feast, Mele was able to speak to Kosatka’s defenders. She knew people like them. She’d led people like them. The similarities with the eager and naïve enthusiasm and the worries and barely hidden fears of those Mele had trained and commanded three years before were painful, calling up memories of the ones who hadn’t survived. She wondered how well she was hiding the reactions those memories were creating in her.
Like other newly settled worlds out here, the first set of colonists had come mostly from one region or state or area, with subsequent waves including people from a broader part of the vast variety of human cultures and places. Mele couldn’t help noticing that nearly all of the militia up here seemed to be from one of those subsequent waves, and that all the ones she was speaking with were lower-level techs and assistants. Worker bees. Hardworking. Essential. And replaceable.
And only eighty of them. It wasn’t hard to factor that equation.
Did Commander Derian on the Shark know? Had First Minister Hofer of Kosatka’s government known when he asked for help from Rob Geary? Probably not, Mele thought. More likely, the highest levels of Kosatka’s military command had run their simulations using the parameters they thought were right and made their decisions to leave the defense of this facility to what was poetically called a forlorn hope. Because forlorn hope sounded a lot better than human sacrifices.
More time had passed than she realized, or the invaders had moved faster than expected. The facility’s public announcing system suddenly boomed to life. “The invasion fleet has begun launching its attack! All personnel to defense positions!”
The militia members waved hasty farewells and dashed off. Mele stood, waiting, until they were gone, then checked her information again. “All they’ve launched so far are warbirds,” she told her Marines. “They’re still a little ways out from the planet.”
Lamar spoke up. “That’s probably so they can get the warbirds in position to screen the shuttle launches from Saber. Just in case our ship makes an attack run on them.”
“Right,” Mele agreed, pleased that Lamar had also been studying up on landing procedures. “Standard tactics for a landing operation. We’ve still got some time. Giddings, I want to know the location and type of everything left on this station that can explode.”
“Captain, I’ve got an Improvised Explosives certification,” Yoshida reminded her.
“So you do,” Mele said, berating herself for not remembering that. “Work with Giddings. This is a nice, central location,” she told the other Marines. “We wait here until we see what else is happening.”
Gamba came close to Mele, speaking in a very low voice. “Captain, talking to those guys, this looks worse than I thought. All militia up here, no regular ground forces. Not very many militia. And no one they can’t afford to lose. I know what that means.”
Mele nodded, impressed that Gamba had also put together all the pieces of the picture. “I came to the same conclusion. Kosatka’s high command must have written off this facility. They left just enough defenders to put up an inspiring fight before losing because they figure it’s sure to fall.”
Corporal Gamba seemed momentarily surprised by how calmly Mele agreed with the assessment. But after a moment, Gamba smiled. “We’re gonna prove ’em wrong?”
“Damn right we are.”
“Captain?” Yoshida called. “They’ve got some grain storage compartments on this facility.”
“And?”
“They’ve got fans to suck up any grain dust and filters to collect it, because fine particles of grain dust can be explosive in the right concentrations.”
Mele raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Grain can explode?”
“Grain dust, Captain. If it’s fine enough and there’s enough of it.” Yoshida pointed to a portion of the facility shown on Giddings’s pad. “That’s why they’ve got the fans and filters. Those grain storage compartments are almost empty, but nobody bothered emptying the dust collection bins. If we disable the filters, open the collection bins, and reverse the fans, we’ll get a real nice concentration of dust in those compartments.”
Mele nodded as she studied the image. “All we need is a spark?”
“That’s all we need,” Yoshida agreed. “We’ve got access to some maintenance shops and spare parts lockers on this facility. I can rig up something using stuff in those.”
“You do that. These grain compartments are located under two of the main approach routes the enemy might use trying to get to Shark. How long will this take to set up?”
“Half an hour.”
“Get it done.” She thought about whether to tell Brazos, who’d probably find some reason to object to the plan, but decided that keeping him in the dark wouldn’t do anyone any favors.
Mele went a few steps away to call the major, waiting impatiently for him to reply.
Brazos finally came on. “What is it?”
To hell with you, too, Mele thought. But she kept her voice professional. “I need to inform you of two things—”
“We’re busy here.”
Narrowly avoiding spitting out a nasty comeback, Mele kept speaking. “We’re rigging the grain compartments to blow if the enemy penetrates that section of the facility—”
“No!”
“Excuse me?” Mele said, surprised that she didn’t sound angrier.
“You’re not authorized to plant any of your explosives anywhere on this facility!”
“Any of my explosives? You mean any explosives we brought with us?”
“That’s right! Am I clear?”
“Absolutely,” Mele said, having decided that if Brazos wanted to dance on his own he was more than welcome to it. “Thank you.” She ended the call and went back to her Marines.
“Any problems, Captain?” Gamba asked.
“Nah.”
“Yoshida and Lamar went to set up the grain compartments to blow. They’ll have to break a few physical safety interlocks and plant the spark generators.”
“Good. I’m going to make some calls to individual militia squad commanders so they know who we are, and so I can get a feel for who they are.”
She was well along in that process when Yoshida and Lamar returned, the former grinning and giving her a thumbs-up.
Soon after, a call came in from Commander Derian. “Yes, sir,” Mele responded immediately.
“The enemy destroyer is clearly setting himself up for an attack,” Derian began without any unnecessary greetings. “And several enemy shuttles are positioning themselves in orbit where they’re screened from fire from Shark. Saber can’t move to engage them without exposing Shark to attack. We estimate you’ve got roughly one hour before enemy shuttles will begin reaching the facility and dropping off soldiers. Thanks to the expert knowledge of Commander Ivanova, our new repair estimate is one and a half days from now to get under way. Please give me that time, Captain Darcy.”
“We will,” she replied, her conscience nagging at her. “Sir, we’ve found a way to weaponize some of the materials on the facility, which would mean destroying part of it. I don’t see any alternative, though.”
“Why are you—? Oh. Captain Darcy, I think that Major Brazos is too concerned with balancing multiple responsibilities,” Derian continued. “Brazos has been ordered to both defend the facility and prevent it from being too badly damaged.”
“I’d gained that impression,” Mele said.
“I can’t override Brazos’s orders from the government, contradictory as they are. But I also can’t give orders to you. Your orders are from Commodore Geary. If he ordered you to do what was necessary to hold this facility long enough to allow the repairs on Shark to be completed, then I’m in no position to tell you to disobey those orders.”
“Thank you, sir. I understand.” That was as close to a go-ahead as Derian could give her. “We’ll get you that day and a half.”
The call ended, Mele turned to her Marines. “It’s down to a day and a half. That’s how long we’ve got to keep the enemy from reaching Shark on the dock. Estimates are the enemy will land in about an hour. That gives you all thirty minutes of leisure. Half an hour from now we go on full combat readiness. Expect to stay that way until Shark pulls out of here.”
They’d all been in long enough to know how to make the most of thirty minutes. Bathroom break, raid the snack dispensers, catch a brief nap, write a message that might never make it to the intended recipient, or whatever else served to prepare for the worst.
Mele did some of that, too. But mostly she sat a little apart from the others as she obsessively studied the layout of the orbital facility and tried to work out plans that might keep Shark safe and her Marines alive.
At the thirty-minute point, Mele stood up, adjusting her armor and checking her weapons. The other Marines did the same without being told.
The estimate proved to be fairly accurate. “They’re on their way,” Mele said as alerts showed up on her pad. “Twenty minutes until estimated arrival. Six shuttles and an aerospace warbird.”
The Marines nodded and stood before her, outwardly casual but inwardly tense, she knew. Just like her.
She ought to say something. Mele hesitated, looking them over. “All right, you apes. This’ll be the first real fight for the Marines of Glenlyon. Centuries from now, I want people to be looking back on this fight with awe and toasting us with the best booze money can buy. Make me proud. And let’s all make a memory that no one will ever forget. Any questions? No? Seal armor. Keep it sharp from this moment on.”
As her helmet display activated, Mele checked it against the pad she still carried. There was a lot going on in orbit. The enemy must have launched every shuttle they had. The many shuttles not heading for this facility were dropping down toward the planet, escorted by warbirds. Saber, tied down protecting Shark from the enemy destroyer, could do nothing.
For how many thousands of years had humanity waged wars, developing better and better weapons? And how many times during those thousands of years had someone proclaimed that some latest weapon had made foot soldiers obsolete? But here, on and above Kosatka, the fight would once again be decided by grunts, fighting face-to-face and maybe hand to hand. Because that was what grunts did, and that’s why, in the end, they were always needed no matter how many other fancy toys people came up with to wage war.
She hoped the grunts on the ground were better prepared than Major Brazos and his militia up here.
“Here they come,” Dominic Desjani said, gazing upward.
Carmen Ochoa looked up as well, seeing the glint of sunlight on dozens of shuttles as they dropped from orbit toward the surface of Kosatka like sparks from a fire falling to earth. She couldn’t help smiling at the memories the vision brought. “A dream come true,” she said, the words dripping with sarcasm.
Domi gave her a glance. “A dream?”
“When I was a little girl on Mars, after my parents were killed, I had to spend a lot of time hiding,” Carmen said, her eyes still on those shuttles high above this world. “I spent some of that time daydreaming, imagining a day when shuttles would fill the Martian sky, dropping down from space like a shower of leaves from a tree killed by a flash freeze. Fire from the sky would strike the dictators and oligarchs and gangs who made life on Mars a living hell for most of us, then the peacekeepers would leap out of the shuttles. Their armor would be gold and silver, and their weapons would shine as they killed every single one of those who had spent their lives making others fear them. And then the peacekeepers would wave me aboard and take me with them when the shuttles lifted. I’d sit in a safe and comfortable seat, with as much food and water as I wanted, and watch the surface of Mars dwindle behind us as we rose, and when we reached Rhiannon Station in high orbit my parents would be there, not dead after all, but waiting for me. And we’d get on a ship and leave Mars and never look back.”
Domi’s gaze on her grew anxious and sad. “That’s one hell of a daydream for a little girl. I’m sorry, Red. No one should have to live a life that spawns those sorts of dreams.”
“People still are living such lives,” Carmen said with a sigh. “When I finally really got on a ship and left, still alone and years later, I didn’t look back. Because I didn’t have to. I couldn’t leave Mars. It’s still there,” she said, tapping her head as she looked back at Dominic. “And now people like the rulers of Mars are trying to come here and make life hell for other little girls and boys,” Carmen added, her voice going from softly contemplative to hard as steel in the space of a few words. “Not while I’m alive to fight them, Domi. Not while I can fight them.”
“Not while we can fight them,” Dominic said, reaching to grasp her hand with his. “Did you ever daydream a honeymoon like this?”
“No,” Carmen admitted. She smiled again, a hard, relentless smile, as manta shapes bolted skyward, heading toward those points of light far above the planet.
“Let’s hope our own ships can keep the enemy warships busy,” Dominic said, also watching Kosatka’s counterattack zoom upward. “Even those aerospace craft have a hard time dodging particle beams fired from low orbit.”
“Warship,” Carmen corrected. “The enemy only has one left, thanks to Piranha and Saber. But we also have only one left, and that’s not even ours. If Saber leaves . . .” She shook her head. “If only we had enough warbirds to hit that enemy warship if it came down to low orbit.”
“We don’t even have nearly enough to stop those shuttles,” Dominic said.
The sky filled with far-distant blossoms of smoke that glittered with embedded chaff and flares as the landing shuttles threw out countermeasures to hide themselves from the weapons on Kosatka’s aerospace craft.
High above Carmen, where the sky turned black and the world formed a blue-white-green-brown curve beneath, where the thin atmosphere glittered with ice crystals and humans had once believed angels and gods dwelt, death now danced on thrusters, hurling charged particles and missiles and projectiles of metal. Unarmed shuttles dodged and dropped in erratic movements designed to throw off enemy predictions of where they’d be and when. Warbirds from Apulu, dropping with the shuttles, engaged Kosatka’s warbirds, while Kosatka’s aerospace craft tried to shoot down anything they could. Badly outnumbered, Kosatka’s warbirds had the advantage of knowing just about everything else in the atmosphere was enemy, while the enemy had to take more time to identify targets to avoid hitting their own birds.
Little could be seen with the naked eye from ground level but occasional flashes of light amid the clouds of countermeasures covering the sky and the broken shapes of stricken craft spinning downward out of those clouds. Carmen raised her rifle and sighted through the scope, but even with maximum magnification not much was visible unless she happened to be viewing just the right spot at just the right time. “That’s a shuttle. Falling fast and on fire, but still under some control,” she told Dominic. Carmen felt a weird simultaneous mix of sympathy for those trapped inside the burning shuttle and satisfaction that they were unlikely to survive to reach the surface. “A warbird. Half a warbird. I can’t tell whether it was ours or theirs. Oh, hell. Something just blew up inside the chaff clouds. Bigger than a shuttle or warbird.”
“Maybe a couple collided,” Dominic suggested.
“If so, I hope it was two of theirs.” She saw light reflecting off many shuttles dropping out of the chaff, heading for their landing points. “A lot of them made it through.”
Three warbirds came into sight, twisting around each other in wild gyrations. Carmen had no way of telling who was who, whether it was two invaders versus a single defender or if two of Kosatka’s warbirds were trying to take out a single one of Apulu’s.
One of the three warbirds exploded, while a second whirled away with a broken wing spinning off. The pilot of the stricken craft ejected, a dot falling through the sky until a parachute bloomed. The third warbird zoomed back up into the chaff, vanishing from her sight.
Who had won? Carmen stared at the falling pilot, wondering whether she should be hoping he or she made it down safely, or if they were an enemy and hoping the chute would fail so one more foe would be out of the fight for good.
“Our systems are starting to project landing sites,” Domi said beside her. “No surprises. Looks like they’re going to land around the main spaceport here, power generation centers, ground transportation hubs, and industrial areas. Here and in Drava. They’ve already got everything in Ani since we had to abandon it.”
“There are small special forces units that are going to keep hitting the ‘rebels’ in Ani so they can’t help attack Lodz or Drava,” Carmen told him. “But if the invaders gain control of all those critical areas they’ll eliminate our ability to sustain a fight over time.”
“I’ve got a big knife that doesn’t need ammunition or power,” he replied.
“Domi . . .” Carmen squeezed her eyes shut, struggling against a wave of despair. “Damn. I don’t want you to die.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, his voice soft. She wondered how his face looked, but wouldn’t open her eyes to find out. “I’ll keep you alive,” Dominic continued, “and you keep me alive.”
She inhaled deeply before she could reply. “Deal.”
He paused as a call came in. “We’ve got orders to move to a projected landing site in the warehouse area just west of here. You coming, Red?”
“Sure.” Carmen lowered her rifle, waiting as Dominic roused his soldiers and gave them orders. The unit broke into small groups, all of them scuttling through alleys and next to buildings, trying to remain as much under cover as possible to avoid being tracked from above.
The city they moved through was still unnaturally quiet. An occasional stray animal or rodent, some native to this world and some brought by humans, dashed into hiding as the defenders ran past. Otherwise, the streets and buildings felt empty, the normal noises of people and their devices gone, only the faint sigh of the wind audible between the sounds of boots striking the still-new pavement.
The block of warehouses they’d been sent to defend was centered around a large, open loading area that made a perfect landing site. Carmen frowned as Dominic began dispersing his soldiers to cover the loading area. “Domi, if these guys use Red tactics they’ll land a diversion force in the obvious place but also drop forces on the streets around it, behind wherever anyone targeting that landing spot would be positioned.”
Dominic paused, his eyes shifting around the area as he thought. “What’s the best move for us if they do that? We don’t have enough people to cover the loading area and all the streets around these warehouses.”
“Cover part of it. Have soldiers targeting the loading area from one or two sides, but also have people covering the streets behind them so you can ensure an escape corridor for those in the warehouses.”
He nodded, looked around again, then started giving orders to his company. “Platoon One, occupy the warehouses on the west side and cover the loading area; Platoon Two, cover the street behind them. Platoon Three, take the warehouses to the south, and Platoon Four, cover the street to the south. Questions? Go!”
Dominic watched his soldiers move but took a moment to give Carmen a questioning look. “Just what was it you did on Mars, Red?”
She shook her head. “You agreed never to ask about that.”
“Sorry. It’s just . . . you know a lot about certain things.”
“I survived, Domi. By doing a lot of different things. That’s what you need to know.” Carmen took up position inside one of the warehouses to the south, kneeling next to a partly opened door she could fire through. With the power to this part of the city shut down, and even the emergency lights inside the warehouse turned off, the brightness of the day outside formed a stark contrast to the interior dimness. Carmen blinked against the brilliant light, her body turned mostly away from Dominic, signaling that particular conversation was over.
The only person she’d ever unburdened herself to, spilling out many of her secrets and the hidden past, had been Lochan Nakamura. And he had, as promised, never spoken of any of it afterward.
She’d slowly come to realize that Lochan was like the man she’d hoped her father would have been if her father had lived long enough for her to really know him. Lochan was the sort of guy you could count on. So was Dominic, but in a different way.
Carmen heard the roar of the descending shuttles before she saw one coming into view as it settled toward the center of the loading zone.
“Fire!” Dominic ordered.
She didn’t think she had much chance of hurting the shuttle with her rifle, but Carmen aimed at what should be vital spots and fired, making sure each shot was centered. She couldn’t afford to waste ammunition, which would now be even harder to come by than before.
Someone else among the defenders had a “dumb” shoulder-fired rocket, though. Unaffected by the countermeasures thrown out by the descending shuttle, the rocket zoomed straight into the craft and tore a hole in the underside near the middle. The blow must have crippled the shuttle’s maneuvering systems. The smooth descent changed to an abrupt leap sideways, the shuttle twisting under the push of thrusters venting out of control.
Carmen flinched back behind the door as the shuttle slammed into a warehouse along the north side of the loading area. Shuttle, warehouse, and the contents of both exploded, rocking the building that Carmen was in.
As the echoes of the blast faded, Carmen heard more shuttles coming in to land on the streets on all sides. Sounds of battle erupted to the south and west as the screening platoons opened fire to keep the escape routes clear.
“First Platoon, Third Platoon! Fall back!” Dominic ordered.
Carmen joined the others in her building as they hurled themselves across a street that had suddenly become a free-fire zone, solid slugs and energy pulses flying in seemingly every direction, the shapes of shuttles rising skyward again after dropping off their first load of attacking soldiers, the crash of grenades punctuating the other noises, and under it all the cries of pain and shock as some of the shots and flying shrapnel struck and tore human bodies.
She lunged into the nearest doorway, gasping for breath, her heart pounding, as the fight continued to rage just outside.
“Pull back! Come on!” Dominic was yelling, gesturing to his soldiers still on the street, exposing himself to enemy fire to help cover their retreat.
Carmen shook her head to clear it as a string of projectiles traced a line of holes along the wall above her with a close-set series of bangs and crashes. Don’t lie there. Don’t panic. Paralysis and panic mean death. You learned that as a little girl. Don’t forget it now. Getting her feet under her, she moved next to Dominic and yanked at him. “Get down, you fool!”
He glared at her, resisting her pull. “I have to lead my unit!”
“Which you can’t do if you’re dead!” she yelled back. “Right now you’re not only exposing yourself to fire, you’re also clearly giving orders! Why not hang a big sign on yourself saying I’m in charge, kill me now?”
Dominic’s glare changed to reluctant understanding as he dropped back a little inside the building and began calling orders on the command circuit. “First and Third Platoons, confirm you’ve pulled back. Second and Fourth Platoons, withdraw through the First and the Third. We’re going to pull back three streets to the office complex at the corner of Zavadska and Petrikower. All units acknowledge!”
He gave Carmen a desperate glance. “Red, cover me while I make sure everyone heard. There’s a lot of jamming.”
Carmen checked her own gear, seeing the enemy jamming also interfering with her scope’s ability to transmit video to whatever was left of Kosatka’s command structure. She knelt by the nearest window, rifle leveled but ensuring the barrel didn’t stick out to be seen by enemies, controlling her breathing and focusing on the sounds of battle nearby.
She heard racing footsteps coming along the street from her left as the fire from Dominic’s unit faltered while the defenders fell back. The footfalls were heavy, reflecting the weight of someone in battle armor.
The invader came into sight with shocking suddenness, running toward the door protecting Dominic. Carmen’s finger twitched without conscious thought, firing at the right moment for a high-powered shot to smash into the side of the enemy’s battle armor.
Even at point-blank range the round might not have penetrated the front or back armor, but the sides of battle armor, where the protective layers thinned to ease arm movement, were more vulnerable. The impact of the shot knocked the enemy soldier sideways, falling onto the street. He rolled to a halt, using one arm to raise a weapon toward the window where Carmen was still aiming from.
She put a second shot into his faceplate.
Carmen heard shouts outside, but as she strained to understand the words over the sound of battle someone yanked her back away from the window.
She spun with a snarl of defiance fed by fear to see Dominic still pulling at her. “They know you fired from there! We have to get clear!”
Part of learning to survive was learning to listen to good advice. Carmen yielded to his pull, following Dominic as they ran into the next room just before the window she had been crouching at exploded under the impact of at least two grenades. Debris rattled against the interior wall they ducked behind and in some cases punched through.
Carmen rolled back to her knees and covered the door while Dominic tried to get through to his unit. “All platoons report. Are you clear?”
She spotted movement near the exterior door and fired. “We can’t stay!”
“Got it. Give me one more minute, Red. All platoons, report!”
“Anyone who isn’t already out of these buildings is probably dead,” Carmen snapped at him.
“They’re my people!” he shouted back, anguished.
“So are the ones still alive, and they need a leader. Come on, Domi!”
Under her urging he followed as Carmen ran through the building and out the other side to a street that felt bizarrely untouched by the violence raging just a street away. She dashed across the street while Dominic covered her, then rested against a pillar supporting an overhang, her rifle aimed at the building they had just left, as Dominic sprinted to join her.
They fell back through another street, finally slowing a little as they jogged toward the meet-up point. She kept an eye out for trouble as Dominic concentrated on trying to get his unit re-formed and assessing their losses.
The office complex had provided high-value financial services, so the ground floor offices had substantial walls for security. Carmen sat in a high-backed leather chair once used by a senior executive, her rifle resting between her knees, trying to rest. She watched the men and women of Dominic’s unit meet up with cries of relief as they discovered friends who had made it here, or suppressed cries of pain at realizing other friends were missing.
“How bad is it?” she asked Dominic as he walked past.
“It could have been worse,” he muttered. “We’ve got twenty unaccounted for. Some of them may still be trying to get here.”
Twenty out of about a hundred. Carmen nodded in understanding. “Get something to eat. What can I do?”
“Help watch the streets. We need as much warning as possible if any of the enemy show up around here.”
“Got it. Eat something,” she repeated.
Carmen found the lobby security desk and activated the exterior cameras using the building’s backup-power batteries. She sat watching, but no enemies appeared. The exterior mics did pick up noise, though. The sounds of fighting elsewhere in the city, the roar of warbirds or shuttles passing overhead, and sometimes between those noises the deceptive quiet that made the empty streets seem peaceful.
Dominic found her still there. “We’ve got orders to head for the park in front of the opera house.”
“A park? Out in the open?”
“It’s full of trees and low stone walls. Sort of a maze with overhead cover. I don’t know how long we’ll be there.”
The unit moved through the streets in quick rushes, watching for trouble but encountering none until they reached the safety of the park’s cover. “Post guards,” Dominic told his platoon leaders. “Four per platoon, rotate them every two hours. Make sure everybody else gets as much rest as they can. I was told we might try to retake part of the east warehouse district.”
“How are things going?” Dominic asked Carmen as they sat down in the grass next to one of the low walls. “How much of the city is under enemy control?”
She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. Everything’s confused. Both sides are jamming every signal they can, every one of our satellites has been knocked down, and we can’t risk our remaining warbirds on reconnaissance missions. We can still use landlines as long as the enemy hasn’t cut them or tapped in to them. From what remains of our intelligence capability, about all I’ve seen for certain is that there’s still fighting going on around the government complex.”
As she talked, Dominic had been chewing mechanically on the food bar she had given him. “Why?” he asked after swallowing. “There’s no government there. They evacuated days ago.”
“It’s the symbolism,” Carmen explained. “Strange thing to die for, huh? The symbolism of buildings that no longer contain anything. I saw that on Mars. Certain old buildings, old sites that had held government functions in the old days, were fought over all the time. Some of them were just piles of rubble. But lives were still sacrificed over being able to claim control of that rubble. Domi, the situation is confused as all hell, but I think we’re holding our own. We might be winning.”
“Winning.” Dominic sat back against the wall, gazing up at the stars beginning to appear between the leaves of the trees as the sky darkened into night. “Winning here won’t be enough, will it? A few years back Scatha tried to invade Glenlyon, and got kicked out of the star system. I was like most people, I guess, thinking, good, they learned their lesson. They won’t try that again.”
“Wishful thinking,” Carmen murmured.
“Yeah,” he said. “Scatha just got some friends and built up their forces and came at us and Glenlyon in a different way. If we beat them here, no matter how badly we beat them, they’ll just come back again someday, won’t they? It’s not enough to stop their attacks. We’re going to have to take the fight to them. Show them they can’t keep attacking others while they and their own star systems stay safe.”
She nodded slowly, looking at the pain and weariness graven on his face like some ancient statue bearing the marks of time. “It’s looking like that, isn’t it? We can’t stay on defense.” Carmen followed Dominic’s gaze upward to the stars multiplying in number and growing more brilliant in the darkening skies. “Their plan here should have worked. Wear us down, isolate us, make sure Glenlyon had nothing to spare for us, take out Shark, then come in with three-to-one superiority against our one remaining warship. They should have succeeded, Domi. This invasion should have been covered by three warships in low orbit. Scatha, Apulu, and Turan had it all figured out because we gave them the time and the opportunity to do that. If Glenlyon’s ship hadn’t shown up and helped, we’d be halfway to defeated on this planet already. And there was no reason to expect Glenlyon to send that ship.”
Dominic nodded as well. “We got lucky, or someone on Glenlyon got smarter than any of us deserve. Did you say you know that guy? The commander of Glenlyon’s ship?”
“Rob Geary. Sort of. I know a friend of his, Mele Darcy, and I only know her because Lochan met her on their way down and out and they got to be friends.”
“The people you know are good to have as friends,” Dominic said, smiling slightly. “Lochan made it out okay? I never got a chance to ask.”
“Yes. The ship he was on jumped safely for Tantalus. If anyone can get help for us from other star systems, he will.”
“I hope you’re right, Red.” Dominic finally looked at her, his smile growing affectionate. “Thanks. I’m pretty sure you saved my life at least once today. I’m glad Lochan is out of this.”
Carmen nodded, smiling back at him. “Lochan was worried about Mele, but she’s probably the safest of us all right now. I’ll bet she’s in a bar somewhere having a good time.”
Mele ducked as a burst of solid slugs tore along a shelf near her, shattering heavy glassware and hurling shards in all directions. A rain made up of droplets of expensive booze splattered her, Giddings, and Lamar.
“Monsters!” Giddings complained. “Who does that to good scotch?”
“Just get me a clean signal!” Mele ordered, trying to sort out where the enemy forces were. The attackers were trying to jam the defenders’ links but with only partial success.
“I’ve almost—There! Got a strong link, Captain.”
Mele’s display steadied out, displaying red markers where enemy movement had been detected. There were a lot of red markers in the two corridors she could see, and more were joining them as continuing fire raked the bar.
The oddly named Buffalo Grass Bar sat at an intersection of two main routes through the facility, opening out into both before they diverged again beyond the bar. That made it a good spot from which to cover both routes. It also made it a really good target once the attackers figured out Mele and her fellow Marines were holed up there, trying to buy time for the militia who had survived earlier attacks to re-form and set up new defensive positions.
The assault had been by the book, the enemy shuttles coming in screened by the bulk of the facility from fire by either Shark or Saber. But Rob Geary had managed to get Saber into position to nail one of the shuttles despite the efforts by the remaining enemy destroyer to keep Saber tied down protecting Shark.
Before the shuttles had dropped off their occupants, the single aerospace warbird escorting them had torn up the areas of the facility facing them to take out any defenders there. Fortunately, Brazos had paid attention to that part of the book as well and kept his forward militia forces far enough back to be safe as the warbird fired everything it had.
The by-the-book attackers had come swarming down the primary routes into the station, aiming to overrun the defenders fast, and ran into the by-the-book defenses set up by Brazos. Mele had watched the first engagement play out on her display, trying to remain dispassionate as friendly markers winked out and the forward militia platoons fell apart under the attack by greatly superior numbers with better weapons and equipment.
She’d already chosen this bar as the point where her part of the Marine force would halt the enemy advance. Corporal Gamba had been sent with the remaining two Marines to block a third corridor.
Watching the movement of the red markers on her display, Mele sensed the next assault building. “Grenades,” she told Giddings and Lamar. “Prime ’em.”
The incoming fire abruptly grew in volume as the attackers charged.
“Let them have it!” Mele ordered, pitching her grenade into the corridor nearest her as the other two tossed theirs down the other. The roar of the resulting explosions hadn’t faded when Mele reared up from behind the barricade formed by the bar and began firing. Her mind stayed cold and sharp as she centered her sights on an enemy, fired, and shifted to a new target. “Lamar! They’re trying to get past on my left!”
“On it!”
Mele heard Lamar scrambling past behind her, but stayed focused on her front, firing with enough speed and precision to throw back an attack already disrupted by the grenades.
She knelt behind cover and recharged her weapon as the attackers fell back. “Report.”
“Good on this side,” Giddings called in, sounding breathless but fine. “They’re pushing hard, Captain.”
“Yeah. Lamar?”
“Um . . .” Lamar’s voice came across the circuit, high-pitched with pain. “I stopped two of them trying to get past, but also stopped something with my leg. Oh, man. Hurt.”
“Giddings, get over to Lamar. I’ll watch our front.” Mele waited, tense, for Giddings to report in again. “Gamba, how are things where you are?”
“We held them,” Gamba said, sounding unnaturally calm. “But I don’t think we can hold them much longer.”
“Understood,” Mele said, peering through the murk of chaff grenades in search of more enemies. On her display, she could see that the militia’s retreat had halted at the next set of defenses.
She could also see the location of the booby-trapped grain compartments, between her Marines and where the militia now was. “Yoshida, are those compartments ready to blow?”
“Yes, Captain. Just give the word.”
“You’re going to have a very short count,” Mele warned. “When we pull back they’re going to be right on our heels.”
“Captain?” Giddings said. “I got a big battle patch on Lamar, but she’s not doing any walking or running. Her left leg’s a mess.”
“Can you carry her?”
“Sure.”
“Get going. Take her back to the next militia position.”
“But—”
“Go!” Mele paused to fire into the cloud of countermeasures slowly drifting across the corridors in front of the bar. “Gamba—”
“I got movement! They’re coming again, Captain!”
“Expend all your remaining grenades and get back as far as the closest militia position! Yoshida! Stand by to blow those compartments!” Mele primed her last two remaining grenades, waiting as sudden motion appeared in the murk before her. She tossed both, crouching as they detonated with blasts that shook the corridor. The moment the explosions ebbed she leapt up and ran, chasing after Giddings and Lamar.
Shots rang out behind her, solid slugs and energy bursts whipping past as Mele crouched and dodged and ran.
But she kept her eyes on the building schematic on her display, measuring her distance to the grain compartments. She was above them, then just past them, the enemy fire growing heavier and more accurate by the moment. Red threat markers filled the corridor behind her. “Now, Yoshida!”
“You’re too close, Captain!”
“I said now!”
A shot skipped off the upper edge of her shoulder armor, staggering Mele, just before the world behind her blew up.