Commando Read online

  A burst of fire cut through the office, punching the cabinets and filling the air with paper.

  “I’ve been thinking about that too,” said Atticus as the Marines returned fire, “I think it was an Ark ship. I think that these aliens found one, could have been any of the missing ships or even one of the fleets. They captured it or found the ship derelict; perhaps it even landed on their home planet,” Atticus shook his head, aware he was rambling, “they ended up with all sorts of advanced engineering information and they were similar enough to us to make use of it. Now, they know we’re out here somewhere, and they’ve planned an invasion.”

  “An invasion?” It sounded thin to Warden but, he had to admit, the firefight certainly leant strength to Atticus’s argument.

  “This might not be the only alien attack underway at the moment. Regardless, you now know that they’re using weapons and armour not that dissimilar to our own. That makes me think they’re also using our cloning technology. We’re not fighting real aliens, just their clones. They might not even be humanoid on their home planet; maybe they used our form because it’s more practical for this work? For all we know, they’re avian or water dwelling. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they probably get around the galaxy the same way we do because they’re using our technology against us. They go somewhere in a ship on auto-pilot, download into clones and then drop out of orbit to begin their attack,” Atticus said.

  “Makes sense. The Lost Arks had a lot of the same technology we use now, and cloning is still the best way to get around the galaxy. All they lacked was faster than light drives. What’s your plan then, Sir? Not to be too pushy but our cover might not last long, and you’re looking paler by the minute,” Warden said apologetically.

  “They must have a base of operations somewhere,” Atticus screwed his eyes closed as another wave of pain wracked his body. “Gather the troops, get some transport and attack. Check the outlying stations. Start with the first to fall. They probably chose one with plenty of power and buildings, far enough from here to be secure and near enough to launch attacks. I haven’t seen vehicles, so I think they’re operating largely on foot. Speak to the Governor, find their base, then capture or destroy their cloning facility to prevent them reinforcing. Questions?” Atticus said.

  “After we’ve dealt with their base, we have to track any remaining enemy and destroy them,” Warden agreed.

  “Yes, then prepare the locals for any follow-up that might come and get any intelligence back to H.Q. Other colonies in this sector may be at risk,” Atticus said. “Try not to destroy their cloning bay, you might need it, and maybe Wilson can use some of the components to repair the colonist’s bays anyway,” he advised.

  “Right. Time to get you out of here then, Sir,” Warden said.

  “Hah!” Atticus responded, coughing up blood as he tried to laugh off the suggestion, “I don’t think that’s a worthwhile use of resources. This body is done for. My HUD shows there’s about four of them left in this squad but another squad is incoming, they’ll be here shortly according to our drone. You have about four minutes to back everyone out of here. I’m staying right here where, if I’m very careful not to move too much, the pain won’t get any worse. But you’re leaving any explosives you can spare, and as soon as their mates turn up, I’ll give them a little welcome party. Now, get cracking. Three minutes and counting. You have your orders.”

  Warden stared at the Captain for a second, then nodded with grim determination. He unslung a pack from his waist and withdrew a block of explosive and a detonator. As he did so, he issued orders over his HUD and Atticus announced the transfer of command. The commandos began a tactical withdrawal back the way they’d come, stopping by their fallen comrades to assist the injured and grab useful kit from those beyond help.

  Warden moved quickly to Atticus’s side and opened his med kit, withdrawing a pair of dispensers and slapping them into the Captain’s thigh. His eyes snapped open, suddenly alert from the booster and additional painkiller. Not medically advisable, given his condition, but it would keep him conscious for long enough to enact his plan.

  Then Warden removed the Captain’s explosive pack and slapped it together with his own. He grabbed a couple of flares from the Captain’s webbing and mashed them in, as well, adding a detonator and syncing it to the Captain’s HUD.

  Atticus grabbed his wrist, brow beaded with sweat, “Take my carbine; I can’t hold it anyway. Give these bastards hell, Warden, you hear? When I come back, I want your report to say they’re all dead and the citizens are safe.”

  “Yes, Captain,” was all Warden could say as he laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

  They fell back into the warehouse as quickly as possible. The next message from Atticus said <1 minute 30> and they began to run as fast as they could, abandoning covering fire as they dashed through the warehouse and into the hydroponic farm.

  as they burst onto the staircase.

  There was a distant chatter of gunfire, far away under the earth, then an almighty explosion ripped through the underground building. The Captain’s indicator on their HUDs went dead as a choking hot dust cloud billowed up the stairs and into the thin atmosphere. More than a dozen icons - the alien troops and their reinforcements - winked out of existence at the same time. The Captain had not sold his final moments lightly.

  Warden looked around the remaining marines, some coughing and spitting dust from their mouths, some looking angry, some depressed.

  “No time for a brew, we’ve got work to do. Get the drones up; I want to know if there’s any enemy movement in the city. And find the Governor. The Captain had a plan and we’re going to carry it out.” He paused and looked around at his troops.

  “We’re taking the fight to the enemy.”

  Chapter Five

  Warden entered the conference room and leant on the back of a chair, head hanging as his chest heaved and his heart pounded in his chest. Under normal conditions, it wasn’t far to run, but New Bristol’s atmosphere didn’t really encourage vigorous exercise. The air was breathable, but you really noticed the lack of oxygen when you exerted yourself.

  They’d moved quickly once Captain Atticus had made his sacrifice. His plan required the support of the colonists and, if his supposition was correct, the aliens could be downloading into new clone bodies even now.

  “Lieutenant, you don’t look like a man bringing good news,” Governor Denmead said, leaving the question hanging.

  Warden engaged the safety on his carbine, withdrew the magazine and cleared the chamber. Then he put the weapon on the table and did the same with Captain Atticus’s carbine and pistol. A set of webbing packs followed. He opened one, withdrawing an ammunition packet. Then he sat down and began to reload the Captain’s magazines. Once settled into the familiar rhythm, he looked up at the Governor.

  “I’m not, Governor Denmead. Captain Atticus is dead. He gave his life buying time for the rest of us to escape the hydroponic farm. He took a dozen aliens with him but we’d already lost good Marines before my section arrived,” Warden reported.

  The Governor cursed in a most impolite manner before summoning her self-control.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Lieutenant. The Captain was a good officer and he was surely a brave man. The citizens of New Bristol owe him a debt. I wish I had time to say more but I need to know what your plan is.”

  “You don’t seem bothered by the idea that the attackers are aliens, Governor.”

  She levelled a cold look at him, “I had already wondered about that, Lieutenant, but I wasn’t going to be the first to say it. We’ve always known there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy and Sol governments have been preparing for it for hundreds of years. Don’t you think I’ve done the First Contact training courses? I’ve been sitting in xenobiology lectures and first contact briefings since before you were born. Most are about peaceful results, but there wer
e enough scenarios like this that I’m not entirely shocked. If you say they’re aliens, they’re aliens. What matters is, can we hold them off, can we survive?”

  “Glad to hear it, Governor and yes, I think we have a chance.”

  Warden stood, picked up the Captain’s carbine and the two magazines he’d loaded and walked over to the Governor. He placed them on the table in front of her. “I think you should have these now. You may need them soon and it’s a serious weapon. You remember how to use one?” he asked.

  “Yes, Lieutenant Warden. Basic training was some time ago but we get annual refreshers along with the keys to the colony and the launch codes for the orbital nuclear strike weapons.” She paused then shook her head. “Sorry, too soon for jokes. There are always risks on remote colonies in the outer rim but I wasn’t expecting this,” said Governor Denmead. Then for emphasis, she checked the weapon was safe, reloaded it and made it safe again. “Frontier Governor isn’t a role for the faint-hearted.”

  “Good. Before he died, Captain Atticus gave me orders to attack the aliens’ base of operations. This is one of their pistols,” he said, producing the large calibre weapon designed for powered armour wearing alien troopers. Demonstrating the mechanism he went on, “As you can see, this is a human design. Updated and modified, certainly, but far too similar to be a coincidence. Atticus believed that the aliens encountered one of the Lost Arks and their equipment is based on designs found within it. That means it may be compatible with ours and they’re likely using our cloning technology as well. With me so far? I don’t have time to discuss this overly much, I’m afraid.”

  Governor Denmead nodded, “I’m with you Lieutenant, I’ll let you know if I have any questions which can’t wait.”

  “They will have captured a location within easy reach of the city. If you’ve seen no sign of them using vehicles, then it has to be within practical marching distance. A day of walking, maybe a little more, but not further than that. It must have good power supplies or a good range of buildings and be defensible. Anything else wouldn’t have enough strategic value to be worth using. I need to know the likely candidates. After that, I need to know what vehicles you have that we can use to get there,” Warden said.

  Denmead put the carbine down and picked up her data slate. A wall screen flicked on, and a satellite imagery map of New Bristol appeared. She caught his look of surprise and answered the very question that was on his mind, “No, Lieutenant, our satellites are gone. This is last year’s data. The topography and locations are correct, of course, but for all we know, the outposts depicted here,” she said as she zoomed the map out, “have been completely destroyed.”

  That was disappointing but not particularly surprising. An alien ship in orbit could easily have destroyed or disabled the colony satellites. Surveillance by low-atmosphere drone was now their only option. Warden issued an order through his HUD, and the tech specialists shared their data with the Governor’s systems. The map of New Bristol began to update, showing the destroyed hydroponic farm and cloning bay.

  “These are the largest outposts that might match your description,” Denmead said as three locations on the map pinged. “All of these have some sturdy buildings, they’re within a reasonable distance for troops to march on the city and they have decent energy supplies.”

  “May I?” Warden asked, holding his hand out for the slate. The Governor nodded and passed it to him.

  He worked the controls, viewing each site from various angles, examining the relief map. “I think we can rule this one out, they’re all on flat terrain, but Cavendish Station is overlooked by this outcrop here. Far too easily attacked. I’d bet against Weston Farm as well; the ravine would make it difficult to get here quickly and efficiently.”

  “So that just leaves, North Solar Farm,” Denmead said.

  “What can you tell me about it?” Warden asked.

  “Nothing interesting. There’s a solar power plant there, obviously,” she said pointing to an array of panels on the western side of the display. “There are some laboratory greenhouses there for testing plants that might survive outside a hydroponic farm. Then there’s some accommodation and a storage bunker.”

  “Looks promising. What’s this area here?” Warden asked.

  “Land cleared for a new expansion. A concrete base prepped for new buildings.”

  “Must be a pretty big expansion, that has to be a hundred metres across. This is our best site. Landing a dropship there wouldn’t be any problem at all; it’s ideal. They know they’ve got a stable landing site, power, ready-made barracks and even a bunker. It couldn’t be better for them if they’d sent you the specification themselves,” Warden said.

  “We have some rovers you can use to get out there. They’re civilian vehicles, but they have good range, and will cope with the terrain.”

  “Right, we need to get moving. We’re going to leave you the spare weapons we recovered from our casualties. Have you managed to produce any of your own?” Warden asked.

  “Not quite. The fabrication plants are still working on the materiel that Captain Atticus authorised. If you want to leave now, none of the weapons will be ready, but we should have plenty of ammunition. Do you want to wait?”

  “No, we can’t. We have to press the advantage now. We’ll restock at the armoury, release everything we don’t need to you and then get stuck in. We captured a few enemy weapons, and we’ll test those en route, see if any will be of use. Beyond that, we’re limited to the light, small arms the emergency bay armouries are equipped with. Grenades and a few sniper rifles are the heaviest we’ve got.” Warden shrugged. “We’ll make do.”

  “I wish I could help, Lieutenant, but we haven’t the population or economy to justify rapid fabricators at this stage of the colony’s development. They burn too much energy to be supported at the moment. If you came back in a few years,” she said apologetically, letting the sentence die.

  Warden grinned. “Governor, we’re Commandos. Improvising our tactics and weapons is a regimental tradition.”

  Chapter Six

  The rovers made easy work of the rocky terrain between New Bristol and the unimaginatively named North Solar Farm. Not that that was surprising, their design had been refined and put to the test on dozens of colony worlds.

  Most Sol governments used something similar, and even the early Mars explorers would have recognised the basic design. Six large wheels, suitable for all terrain, computer controlled and with high-travel suspension.

  Getting in quickly was a pain, though; not ideal for military purposes. You had to wait for the vehicle to settle on its hydraulic suspension or use one of the sets of steps that appeared only when the vehicle couldn’t lower itself because of obstructions under the chassis. You could leap down though if a two-metre drop took your fancy.

  With no weapon mounts, they’d have to dismount to engage the enemy so they planned to get as close as they could without bringing the vehicles into view, then yomp across the remaining distance under cover of their snipers and light support weapons.

  Warden sat with Sergeant Milton at a navigation and mapping station going over all the data the colonists had gathered about the ground between the city and North Solar Farm. They were looking for somewhere that they could test the alien weapons in relative safety, far enough from both the city and their destination that the enemy would not know what they were doing.

  “There,” said Sergeant Milton, pointing at a shallow canyon in the top right of the screen, “It’s deep enough to contain any firing, and the gradient leading into it should be manageable by the rover.”

  “It’s a little further out of the way than I’d hoped,” Warden replied, “but I suppose it’s better to be discreet than get into an unexpected firefight.”

  “There’s a cliff face over there, but there’s nothing to shield it from either side and no cover for the teams staying with the vehicles. There are rocks by the canyon mouth that we can use as fire positions in case the aliens do fin
d us.”

  Warden nodded, “Agreed.” He used a stylus at the station to enter a change of route on the nav computer and sent it to the driver, a colonist who had volunteered to get them to North Solar Farm. She called back to him to confirm she’d received the updated route, “Why there though, Captain?”

  “It’s Lieutenant Warden actually. We captured some weapons, and we want to test them, make sure we can use them. The emergency bays don’t carry the heavy weapons we’d want for a task like this, and we don’t have time to wait for the fabricators to produce them. The canyon is a good place to test them away from enemy sight lines and without getting too far away from our attack vector. Can you get us there safely?” he asked.

  “Not a problem for the rover, Lieutenant, it can handle the trip easily, even with this load. I’ll pass the details to the other rovers,” she replied before hailing the drivers in the two trailing vehicles.

  Warden turned to Milton, “So, what’s your bet on the contents of our haul?”

  “I’d eat my socks if we don’t have a few rail rifles there. Two of them are very similar, drum magazines and big shells but I think one is a grenade launcher, and one is a shotgun. The shells on one are big though, so it’s either massive explosions or a ridiculous load of pellets,” she replied, rocking her hand side to side to indicate the uncertainty about those weapons.

  “Rail rifles would be useful against vehicles or infantry in powered armour. I want the base intact, if possible, but I’m guessing we’ll have to flush them out of the buildings once we’ve taken care of their perimeter personnel,” Warden said.

  “Yes, Sir. The shotgun might be useful for room clearance, but you can’t be letting off rail rifles in a civilian habitat, it’ll go straight through the walls, and there could be pressurised canisters in the building or just one of the team out of position. It’s a recipe for disaster. A grenade launcher would be even worse, flash bangs only inside I think,” Milton answered.