Knox's Irregulars Read online

  A burst of static crackled in his ear, followed by Jeni Cho's voice. It sounded high-pitched and more excited than he'd ever heard it. "Third Platoon, this is Lance Corporal Cho. Satellite communication with headquarters has been knocked out. Also, a suborbital liner has strayed into restricted airspace on trajectory for our poz. There's something dodgy about it."

  On the heels of Jeni's call came Lieutenant Kenshiro, the platoon leader. "The Old Man just put us on Alert Five status. Get everybody up on the line, suits buttoned-up and looking sharp. Out."

  Motioning for Sanchez to wake the others, Randal scanned the sky for the suborbital. After several moments he made it out, enhancing the image until some level of detail could be seen. It was an Abkhenazi model. They liked to build on a monumental scale and this craft was no exception. Oddly, there were bulky external fuel pods under the wings. All of the suborbitals he was familiar with used nuclear fuel pellets. Were times so hard for the Abkhenazi that they'd resorted to internal combustion?

  Then, seemingly in slow motion, the pods tumbled from the wings and fell from view. A breathless Jeni came back across the comset. "God save us! Everybody better be suited up. I think we've got gas incoming."

  Randal scanned the HUD, checking his suit integrity. No problems there. Looking over his fire team, however, he noticed Ariane with the helmet of her medic suit resting back on its hinges. She was obviously still trying to wake up.

  "Mireault," he said quietly over the speakers, "Get your flaming helmet on." The chill in his tone spurred her. She locked it in place quickly, flashing a thumbs up.

  Twelve cylindrical shapes dropped among the New Genevan positions, most of them concentrated down the mountainside where the foot infantry was entrenched. The large canisters hissed as they fell, leaving mist trailing in their wake that was vaguely yellow even in the early morning light.

  Later, to the few he ever told, Randal would describe the screams coming over the Battalion ComNet as the closest thing he could imagine to what souls in Hell must sound like. Terrified, gurgling, howling men overlapped each other's transmissions, all of them begging for help, even for death. Adding to the terrible surreality of it all was Major Tarrington's nasally voice calling for order. As if order could be found in the face of such horror.

  Lieutenant Kenshiro came in on the Platoon ComNet. "All teams, sitrep, over."

  Giving his people a quick visual, Randal found they were mercifully all right. "Team Two, no casualties."

  "Team Three, all's well."

  Thank God. That was Van Loon. The two of them went back to Randal's days as a skinny recruit.

  "Team One, we're up."

  "Team Four, no casualties."

  It must be the foot infantry that was suffering, he thought. "Mireault, come with me, let's see what we can do," he said, surprised how level his voice held. "The rest of you maintain position."

  The path down to the line infantry was nearly three hundred meters long and very steep. Randal hoped they'd given the medic at least a modicum of rough terrain drills.

  Not looking back, he started his half running, half sliding descent. As always, he was amazed at the engineering that went into the LANCER suit. Sixty-five hundred microcomputers dispersed throughout the rig fed data to the artificial musculature animating it. A virtual gyroscope in the suit's "brain" constantly updated the microcomps on exactly which direction was up. This was known as travel-by-wire.

  The suit responded to the wearer's movements through a series of gel-filled sacks lining the interior of the armor. These sacks served two purposes: protecting the wearer from the impact of incoming projectiles and reading the pressure from the wearer's movements. Any body movement caused an instantaneous mimicked reaction on the suit's part. Some actions required finesse. Randal was a little worried as he hustled down the mountainside; Ariane hadn't yet had time to develop such skills.

  His foot struck a rocky outcropping and he found himself unexpectedly airborne. There was a jolt as the suit's jump jets kicked in and suddenly the world was right side up again. Stumbling to a stop about forty meters from the infantry trench line, he turned to wait for Ariane.

  The girl wasn't far behind. He blinked at the grace with which she moved, adroitly negotiating the broken terrain even faster than he had done. Reaching the rocky nose, she hopped from it, her jets flaring briefly as she planted a landing squarely in front of him.

  "Nice descent." He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.

  "Twelve years of Cecchetti ballet," she answered simply.

  "That's what I get for taking rugby instead of ballet. Let's go check the line-doggies."

  The two approached the trenches from behind. At ten meters he halted, awaiting a challenge from the infantry. When nothing was heard after several moments, he hoarsely whispered, "Hey, straight-legs... you awake?"

  There was no response.

  Trying to conceal his worry, he headed for the first foxhole. Spotting no movement, he tore back the overhead cover so Ariane could work unobstructed. Two masked and chem-suited infantrymen lay inside. Their posture was all wrong. Both had limbs twisted at unnatural angles, torsos wrenched horribly, fingers clutching and frozen in place.

  Ariane leaped inside and popped open her medic kit. After pulling out a rectangular device, she moved it down the length of the first man's body at a distance of about three centimeters. She repeated the process on the second, emitting a sigh. "No life-signs on either of them, Corporal Knox."

  "Nerve gas," Randal explained, remembering belatedly to call up a chem sensor readout on his HUD. There were traces of three chemicals: Martex, a blister agent; Virtus-D, a favorite nerve agent the Abkhenazi stockpiled by the ton; and an unidentified solvent. He bet the solvent was what enabled the poisons to penetrate the infantry's protective gear. Each was a short-term agent; already they were dispersing to tolerable levels. "It's probably safe to breathe, but don't unmask yet."

  In the next hole lay two more bodies. Surprisingly, one of the occupants still clung to life. Ariane climbed in and gently removed the soldier's mask. Perhaps he had once been handsome, but it was impossible to tell. His skin was scorched by the blister agent. It had blinded his eyes and scalded his throat so he could only emit confused wheezing sounds. His body was twisted like the others, his breathing shallow fits.

  Ariane took a hyposyringe from the medical case, injecting the man with a nerve-gas counteragent and a painkiller. Settling in next to him, she pulled him gently into her arms. He croaked something, perhaps a name. Ellen... Evelyn? His arms flailed as he reached for her, his haywire nervous system refusing to obey.

  Not looking at Randal, Ariane popped the seals on her helmet and pushed it back. "I'm here, honey..." she told the man softly, seeming determined to be whoever he needed her to be.

  A look of serenity came over the man. "Evelyn..."

  Ariane looked ready to cry, taking a deep breath and stroking his hair softly. She sang to him in a whisper. The song was French and sounded like a lullaby. Her voice was frightened and a little off-key, but Randal was forced to look away, the sweetness of it penetrating his reserve. He needed to be hard to get his people through the next few hours. By the time her song was finished, the man had given up his fight. She pressed a hand to his forehead and whispered a good-bye before leaving the foxhole.

  The other armored medics were checking the last of the foxholes. It was staggering—no one was left alive in the forward positions.

  Someone must have given an all-clear, because the infantry pressure tents unsealed. The First Sergeant of the company closest to Randal formed up his men and started counting heads. Doing a quick count of his own, Randal was shocked to find nearly a third of the foot infantry gone. They must have been at one-third security, the remainder safely asleep in their tents. The odds in the coming battle had just gotten steeper.

  Randal pitched in as the dead were policed up, tagged and bagged behind the line. As soon as the grisly task was complete he and Ariane headed back t
o the team's position up-mountain. The Abkhenazi had used quick-dispersing chemicals rather than persistent agents for a reason—they were planning on occupying that stretch of land very soon.

  CHAPTER 3

  Be convinced that to be happy means to be free

  and that to be free means to be brave.

  Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.

  —Thucydides

  First light had just kissed the western sky as movement commenced on the Abkhenazi side of the Demilitarized Belt. Here and there a helmet bobbed into view or light glinted from a vehicle's viewshield. The faint sound of automatic cannon fire carried to Randal and a small orange burst exploded over the Abkhenazi troops.

  "I don't believe it! They got one of my drones," came Jeni's voice across the comset. "Their main body is forming up on the other side of that hill. I didn't know that many sodding people lived in Abkhenazia!"

  Randal smiled in spite of himself. Jeni's approach to commo etiquette was always a little left-of-center.

  A carump sounded from behind the opposing hill. Seconds later whistling sounds presaged the explosion of an artillery shell down near the infantry trenches. A geyser of smoke and dirt plumed several meters short of them.

  Weird, thought Randal. You don't see any flame like on trideo, just a big smoke puff.

  A few tics and then a second round struck, this one closer. The Abkhenazi walked their rounds step by step until they were falling regularly among the foxholes. The earth shook under the relentless impact of 198- and 240-millimeter shells.

  Rockets streaked overhead as the New Genevans counter-fired with their own batteries. They had abandoned tubed artillery long before, favoring more effective rocket and missile systems. Additionally, scores of drones flew over the enemy positions, most with targeting lasers used to guide incoming Genevan missiles.

  For several minutes a running artillery duel took place. The batteries on both sides would fire a few salvos and then frantically evacuate to another area before an answering barrage could destroy them.

  The NGDF had a solid qualitative advantage over the Abkhenazi, but this edge was offset by the vast numerical superiority of the Abkhenazi Artillery Corps. The Khlisti saint Josef Stalin had a point when he said that quantity has a quality all its own.

  Ariane joined Randal in his fighting position. She seemed restless. Medics were non-combatants and there was little to do until someone caught an unlucky round. "Are we winning?"

  "For the moment, yeah. Our guys have spent a month digging in. Meanwhile, the Abbies are on the march - easy pickings for our cluster munitions."

  "Here we go," called Jeni. "Main body's in motion."

  Enemy forces crested the ridge. From two kilometers away, they appeared to progress almost slowly, though Randal knew they were moving full-tilt. He'd read of swarming insects that existed back on Terra before tailored viruses wiped them out. The wave of Abkhenazi looked like locusts, devouring everything they came upon.

  A line of tanks spearheaded the rush, both tracked and the lighter hover variants. Behind followed infantry mounted on hover-sleds and then the main body of troops in squad-wedges. Trailing the main body by a good distance was a section of black-painted vehicles. They looked to be wheeled, lightly armored and armed only with an autocannon on a swivel turret.

  Those would be the Scourge of the Prophet, Randal remembered from his briefings. In peacetime they were the secret police of Abkhenazia, rooting out infidels and keeping the people in check. In wartime they enforced orthodoxy among the soldiers. They were a quasi-priestly caste, rousing the troops with promises of evolution to pure consciousness should they die in battle. During combat they were there to gun down any troops who might break and run for the rear.

  Johnny Warfield cut in on the Platoon ComNet. "For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful."

  "Shut it, Warfield. Everyone fire at will," came Lieutenant Kenshiro's order. The vanguard was still out of range for Randal's autocannon, but he heard the crack of Rogers' railgun from down the line.

  What Rogers struck was impossible to tell. The heavy railguns of the battalion's hovertank company were working murder on the enemy by then, joined by the anti-vehicular rockets of the foot infantry. Much of the enemy's forward edge simply evaporated, the heat and force of the explosions annihilating the sled-borne soldiers. Their tanks fared little better, the hulks becoming burning obstacles to the follow-on troops.

  The range-finder on his HUD placed the lead edge of the enemy at 900 meters, just within the autocannon's effective range. He and the other two cannoneers on the team opened up, spraying a hail of caseless 13.7 mm depleted uranium shells downrange.

  He smiled coldly as his first shot opened up a six-wheeled scout car. The next ranged wide, but his third took apart the skirting of a hovertank, the speeding craft nosing into the dirt, main cannon bending into a useless angle.

  For several minutes he fell into a rhythm of target acquisition and firing. By then, the first wave had lost much of its élan. Nearly all the Abkhenazi vehicles were inoperable and while the dismounted infantry was nearly upon the NGDF lines, no one wanted to be the first to die. Caught between the guns of the NGDF to the front and the Scourge of the Prophet behind, the advance slowed to a crawl. It was truly a bizarre sight, thousands of enemy soldiers almost walking into the NGDF perimeter.

  Van Loon apparently had the same thought. "Oh no, after you..." he said over the comset with a cynically amused chuckle.

  The foot infantry took full advantage of the situation, opening up with flechette rifles, autogrenade launchers and anti-personnel rockets at point-blank range.

  Given the proximity of the enemy and their lack of armor, Randal switched weapons and hosed the Abkhenazi with the arm-mounted light machine gun. His sighting reticule magnified the scene and despite being well up-mountain from them, he could clearly see his targets dance and fall as the bullets struck them. A detached part of his mind knew he should be disgusted, but fear and adrenaline were drowning out any other emotions.

  The carnage was more than the demoralized enemy could bear. They killed many of the NGDF troops just by sheer weight of numbers, but in the end they crested and broke, streaming back toward the border. The Scourge made a feeble effort to stem the retreat, but in the end decided that seeking cover might be the right idea after all.

  "C'est hyper chouette!" Ariane called out jubilantly behind him. "We won!"

  Randal felt badly for her, hating to quash her mood. "They'll be back, Private Mireault. That was just the first wave. We haven't seen a fifth of their numbers yet. Now that they've tested us they'll hit us with their full strength. They'll win by attrition if nothing else."

  "Ça craint!"

  ***

  Once the enemy was back across the border, NGDF medics filtered out from the trenches. Kneeling beside Abkhenazi wounded, they began treating those who moments before were trying to kill them. Brainwashed as they were, the Abkhenazi struggled against their would-be healers.

  "Very impressive," Randal observed, nodding a visored helm in Ariane's direction. Along with the danger from their patients, ammunition from the burning vehicles was cooking off in the heat, warheads firing in random directions. Randal wasn't surprised when the first explosion went off near a medic, tossing him like a child. He assumed it was a cooked-off shell.

  Then rounds began falling in profusion. The defenseless medics were slaughtered. There wasn't time for them to even consider taking cover.

  "Stop them!"

  Randal caught movement in his peripherals, just in time to restrain the girl before she ran off. "All you could do is die with them," he said, holding her tightly by the shoulder plates.

  "But they're non-combatants," she said in a tight voice, shaking her head uncomprehendingly.

  "I don't think there are any more non-combatants."

  The next wave began in much the same way as the first, the surviving artillery on both sides exchanging barrag
es. This time, however, the enemy committed its air power.

  A wing of Banshee-class attack skimmers swooped down upon the New Genevans. Though low-tech, they were respectable close air support platforms, able to deliver huge amounts of munitions with reasonable accuracy. They got their designation from the shrill keening the engines made passing overhead.

  The armored infantry's position up-mountain placed them right at cockpit level as the Banshees screamed in. With the speed they were cruising, Randal would never hit them manually, so he took the risk of activating the small targeting sensor the suit supported. The active sensor could draw enemy fire, especially the anti-radiation missiles carried by the Banshees, but he felt sure the electronic clutter of the battlefield would shield the emissions.

  Drawing a bead on the lead skimmer, he triggered a burst, missed.

  The skimmers came in at a high angle of attack, their exposed underbellies covered with tumorous-looking clusters of munitions. Stiff ground fire and the smoky trails of surface-to-air missiles rose to meet them, swatting down several. That still left many more to release their deadly cargo.

  Their first run complete, the survivors wheeled sharply to circle for another pass. According to the sensor inset on his HUD, there were at least forty of them still airborne.

  "The bloody Air Marshall committed the entire NGAF to the other pass," Randal yelled to Ariane. "Even a handful of interceptors might have driven these things off. Wish he could be here now!"

  He lined up his reticule on an incoming bird. The underpowered sensor refused to lock while the target was nose-on. Impatiently he waited until the Banshee presented a fat side view, grunting approval as the reticule shifted from green to yellow to red. Hearing tone-lock in his ear, he triggered the autocannon, tearing the skimmer apart.

  The Banshees made three more passes before expending their payload. Less than a quarter of the Banshees survived the engagement, but the damage was done. It was difficult for Randal to make out how many troops were left below. Incendiary bombs and fuel-air explosives had set the forest alight — oily smoke billowed into the sky.