Relentless

FIVE

“Conventional ground artillery firing upon the camp from locations thirty kilometers to the east and twenty kilometers to the south.”

Geary tagged more targets and launched rocks at them. His main display floated to one side, showing the situation on a wide portion of the planet’s surface below and orbital locations that could threaten the fleet. To the other side hung an overhead view of the POW camp, symbols crawling along it to mark the movements of friendly and enemy troops on the ground. Directly in front of him, Geary had positioned a string of windows for calling up views from the battle armor of Marines. He had to avoid using those too much, had to avoid getting sucked into the action on one tiny part of the battlefield when he was supposed to be overseeing the entire fleet, but sometimes those personal views from the Marines could provide a very good feel for how things were going for them.

At the moment, that was hard to figure out no matter how he viewed it. On the overall view, some of the Marine platoons and companies were pushing steadily inward toward the center of the camp, symbols for liberated POWs multiplying rapidly around them as they blew open prisoner barracks and collected the occupants. In other areas, the Marines were moving slowly, under fire from Syndic guards entrenched in the buildings on all sides. Evacuation shuttles were dropping down into the center of the camp despite occasional shots fired at them as they descended. On the landing field, a growing number of dazed, liberated prisoners were being hustled toward the first shuttles. The command and control feed from the Marines was filled with reports and warnings.

“Shuttles Victor One and Victor Seven badly damaged by ground fire. Returning to base ships.”

“Target building desig five one one! Hit it!”

“They’re on the left, too. Small structures bearing zero two one and zero two three true.”

“Mines. We’re in a field, two Marines down. All units watch for mines.”

“Can’t somebody do something about that damned artillery?”

“The fleet’s on it. Bombardment hitting now.”

“Lighting up a bunker. Put a round on it!”

Desjani, who was listening and watching as well, shook her head. “Are we winning?”

“I think so.” Geary turned as the combat-systems watch called.

“Sir, we’re getting a lot of bombardment requests from the Marines—”

“Every bombardment request outside the one-hundred-meter safety zone from our Marines is supposed to be approved automatically,” Geary replied a bit irritably.

“Yes, sir, but we could respond to them a bit faster if they were one hundred percent handled by the automated systems, just like when we engage other ships.”

Geary shook his head. “Lieutenant, we might shave some seconds off the response time if we did that, but the Marines asked that every bombardment be verified by a human set of eyes before final approval to ensure it’s aimed at the right spot. I’m not going to overrule the preferences of the Marines in this.”

The lieutenant looked unhappy, so Geary took a moment to explain. “We have no choice but to leave targeting entirely up to the fire-control systems when we’re engaging Syndic warships. It’s physically impossible for human beings to react quickly enough at the velocities involved. But neither the Syndics on the ground nor our Marines are moving at any appreciable fraction of the speed of light. We can afford to have a human in the loop. If you get any reports of undue delays in approving bombardment requests, I want to know. I assure you that the Marines will be the first to let us know if they’re unhappy.”

“Yes, sir.” Only slightly abashed, the lieutenant focused back on his tasks.

“You’re tolerant of lieutenants,” Desjani remarked, her eyes still fixed on her own display.

“I used to be one. And so did you.” Like Desjani, Geary kept most of his attention on the situation but welcomed anything that might cut the tension slightly. He suspected she could see how wound up he’d become and was trying to relax him a little.

“Not me,” Desjani denied. “I was born the commanding officer of a battle cruiser.”

“That must have been painful for your mother.”

She grinned. “Mom’s tough, but even she didn’t like having the sideboys in the delivery room.” Then the smile vanished as a high-priority transmission came over the Marine net.

“Third Company is pinned down!”

Geary tapped windows until he picked up the lieutenant in command of that unit. The view from the lieutenant’s combat armor showed broken, tumbled walls shuddering and blowing apart under the impact of enemy fire. “Heavy-weapons emplacements and hidden bunkers,” the lieutenant continued. “We must have stumbled onto some kind of citadel area. We’re badly outgunned here, and we’ve taken substantial casualties.”

Colonel Carabali’s voice came on. “Can you withdraw toward the center of the camp by stages, Lieutenant?”

“Negative, Colonel, negative!” The view through the lieutenant’s armor jumped as something exploded with enough force to toss around nearby Marines. “We cannot move without being targeted. Request all available fleet fire support.” Geary watched the tactical maps pop up on the lieutenant’s heads-up display, watched as the lieutenant tagged scores of targets in a rough circle around the friendly symbols marking the positions of the Marines of the Third Company. “Request bombardment support on the following coordinates. All available supporting fire as soon as possible.”

“Sir,” the combat-systems watch reported, “we’ve received another Marine fire-support request, but the targets are inside the safety parameters.”

“How far inside?” He read the data, blowing out a long breath as he saw the distances. As Geary was checking, Colonel Carabali’s image appeared. “Captain Geary, my Third Company needs fire support and it needs it now.”

“Colonel, most of these targets are only fifty meters from your Marines. Some of them are within twenty-five meters.”

“I understand, Captain Geary. That’s where the enemy is.”

“Colonel, we’re dropping rounds through atmosphere. I can’t guarantee that our own fire won’t hit those Marines!”

“We know that, sir,” Carabali stated. “The lieutenant knows that. This is what he needs. He’s the senior officer on the scene. He’s made the call that these targets have to be engaged despite the danger to own forces. Request approve and execute the fire mission as soon as possible, sir.”

Geary looked into her eyes. Carabali understood the danger, too, but was accepting her on-scene commander’s judgment. As fleet commander, he could do no less. “Very well, Colonel. It’s on its way.”

He turned to Desjani. “How can we maximize the accuracy of a surface bombardment right now?”

Desjani spread her hands. “Through atmosphere and all the junk we’ve already tossed up? Get the bombarding ship in as low an orbit as you can manage. But that will expose the ship to fire from the planet.”

“Okay.” A quick scan of the display showed the right candidate. A battleship could deliver enough firepower and have the best chance of surviving counterfire from the ground. “Warspite, proceed to lowest orbit and execute following fire-support mission as soon as possible.”

“Warspite, aye. On our way.”

“Sir, we have detections of aircraft en route the POW camp. Aircraft assessed military profile, all using maximum stealth capabilities.”

“Engage them,” Geary ordered.

Hell lances lashed down from orbit, forming webs of high-energy particles around the Syndic aircraft. With so many Alliance warships in space above the planet and able to fire on targets, the aircraft didn’t have a chance. Hard to see though the aircraft were, even a glancing blow from a hell lance was enough to knock them out, and a lot of hell lances filled the atmosphere around the aircraft. “All aircraft assessed destroyed. Warspite opening fire.”

On the view from the lieutenant commanding the Third Company, walls began blowing inward, and the ground jumped in a continuous wild dance as Warspite hurled hell lances and small kinetic projectiles into her targets. The feed from the lieutenant hazed as the destruction continued, dust and charged particles filling the air around him, then cut off completely.

“We’ve lost comms with the Marine Third Company,” the communications watch responded. “There’s so much junk in the air from the bombardment and the hell-lance fire that we can’t get signals through. We’re trying to reestablish contact, but it’ll probably be a few minutes.”

Was there anyone left to reestablish contact with? Geary had just had time to formulate that thought when another watch-stander called out.

“Missile launches from Syndic orbital facility Alpha Sigma. Three missiles. Assessed orbital-nuclear-bombardment warheads. Initial tracks toward site of POW camp. Combat systems recommend vectoring light cruiser Octave and destroyers Shrapnel and Kris to destroy the missiles, and launching kinetic rounds from Vengeance to destroy the firing installation.”

“Approved. Execute the commands.” Geary looked toward Rione. “So they did have nukes in orbit.”

“These might not be all of them,” she answered.

“More aircraft inbound toward POW camp. Assessed military.”

“Engage them,” Geary ordered.

“Surface-based Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile launches detected. Trajectories targeted on POW camp. Combat systems recommend engage missiles immediately with hell-lance fire and that Relentless bombard the IRBM launch site.”

“Do it.”

“Marine Sixth Company reports encountering a booby-trapped area. Several casualties.” An alert sounded. “Warspite has taken a hit from a surface-based particle-beam battery. Warspite is undertaking evasive maneuvers and engaging the battery with bombardment munitions. Warspite reports fire-support mission complete.”

Still nothing from Third Company on their circuit.

“IRBMs and launch site destroyed. Octave has destroyed two of the nuclear bombardment missiles. Shrapnel has taken out the third. Warspite reports surface particle-beam battery destroyed. Estimated time to kinetic-round impacts on orbital launch site is three minutes.”

Carabali’s image appeared again. “Sir, we’ve spotted two ground convoys heading for the camp under cover of the dust thrown up by the bombardments so far.” Next to her, imagery of the convoys appeared. “Our recce drones operating under the dust identified uniforms and weapons in both convoys before we lost one of the drones to ground fire.”

“All right, Colonel. We’ll take care of those convoys.” Geary passed the data to the combat systems and watched a recommended engagement pattern pop up an instant later. He punched approve and saw another wave of kinetic rounds burst out of several Alliance warships, headed downward. “Good thing kinetic rounds are cheap and plentiful,” he remarked to Desjani. Was this what ancient gods would have felt like, hurling death and destruction from above onto the humans and their structures far below?

“Bombardment impacting Syndic orbital facility Alpha Sigma.”

Geary saw a flock of escape pods heading away from the doomed Syndic facility, then the Alliance rocks began hitting and blowing apart huge pieces of the Syndic orbital base. Within moments, it vanished, replaced by a cloud of junk.

“Comms reestablished with Marine Third Company.”

Geary tagged the window and saw a static-riddled vision of almost total destruction. The lieutenant sounded stunned as he reported in. “Enemy fire has ceased.”

Carabali’s order snapped back. “Withdraw immediately along line one zero five true. I’m sending forces to link up with you.”

“Colonel, our dead—”

“We’ll come back for them. Get you and your wounded out now!”

“Understood, Colonel. On our way.”

Our dead. Your wounded. Geary looked at the status readouts for the Third Company. It had landed with ninety-eight Marines. Sixty-one were still alive, and of those, forty showed various degrees of injury. The bombardments aimed at the two Syndic surface convoys reached their targets, and two sections of roadway and surrounding terrain rose toward the sky as everything within the strike zone blew apart under the tremendous impacts of the Alliance projectiles.

“Sir,” Carabali reported, “we have indications of enemy pursuit organizing behind Third Company’s withdrawal.”

“Thank you, Colonel. We’ll take care of it.” Geary passed the target area to Warspite. After viewing the Marines’ casualties, he wasn’t interested in humanitarian gestures toward the enemy trying to kill his people. “Turn this area into a dead zone, Warspite.”

“Warspite, aye. It’ll be a pleasure, sir.”

As Warspite hurled another bombardment toward the planet’s surface, Geary pulled back his view for a moment. The region around and at the borders of the POW camp had been turned into a seething hell of craters and dust. Other areas on the ground showed craters where kinetic rounds had taken out surface launch sites or batteries, and here and there clusters of damage marked where Alliance hell lances aimed at Syndic aircraft had gone on to strike anything on the surface in their line of fire. Parts of the city nearest the POW camp were burning, but so were substantial portions of other cities on the planet, and as Geary watched, a massive explosion obliterated a section of one of the biggest cities on the planet. “They did that to themselves?” he asked.

“On purpose or by accident,” Desjani confirmed.

“More aircraft inbound.”

“If they’re assessed military, then engage. Weapons free on all military aircraft heading toward that POW camp.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rione was gazing bleakly at the display. “You think they would’ve figured out how useless this all was. Everything they throw at us is just getting destroyed, usually with damage to other things on the surface.”

“If the command and control net is still as fragmented as it looks, no Syndic in orbit or on the surface may have a decent picture of what’s going on,” Geary pointed out. “We don’t even know who’s giving orders to these units. Some of them may be operating independently, following standing orders to resist any force attacking the planet.”

His eyes went to the window for the lieutenant leading Third Company. The battle armor showed a gradual lessening of destruction as the Marines made their way out of the area flattened by Warspite. But as Geary watched, the image suddenly blanked, to be replaced by another of roughly the same scene but from another spot. “Lieutenant Tillyer is down,” someone was saying. The window identified the new speaker as Sergeant Paratnam. A building to one side collapsed as Marine fire tore it apart. “We got the sniper.”

“Understood,” Carabali replied. “I read you one hundred fifty meters from a linkup with elements of Fifth Company. Do you have them on your HUD?”

“Yes, Colonel. Got’em.” Paratnam sounded immensely relieved. “Proceeding to linkup.”

Geary tapped a control, getting the health stats for the Marines in Third Company. Lieutenant Tillyer’s status readouts were all zeroed. “One hundred fifty meters,” he murmured.

“Sir?” Desjani asked.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? In a space engagement, one hundred fifty meters is too small a distance to worry about. At point one light speed we cover that distance in a tiny fraction of a second. It might as well be nothing. Except for weapons targeting. Then it means the difference between a miss or a direct hit. And for a Marine on a planet’s surface that small distance decides life and death. He takes the chance of calling in our own fire right on top of his own position, he leads his unit to safety, and just short of safety, he dies.”

Desjani looked away for a moment. “The living stars decide our fates. It often seems random, but there’s always a purpose.”

“You truly believe that?”

Her eyes met his, and Geary thought for a moment that he could see reflections of every death Desjani must have witnessed in this war, every friend and family member she’d lost. “If I didn’t,” she said quietly, “I couldn’t keep going.”

“I understand.” Not for the first time he remembered that the people around him had grown up with this war. So had their parents. He couldn’t begin truly to feel the pain they must have endured as the casualty tolls mounted ever higher with no end in sight.

“You didn’t always.” She gave him a sad smile. “You couldn’t handle even minor losses once. Now, you can endure them and keep on. But I felt sadness back then, seeing your reaction to the loss of a single ship, and wishing I hadn’t been born in a time when such innocence could never be.”

“I can’t remember the last time I was called innocent. Back when I was an ensign, I guess.” Geary took a deep breath. “Let’s get this battle done with and make sure we lose as few more people as possible.”

The watch-standers and automated combat systems would alert him to anything he needed to know, but Geary made a last check of the larger picture before diving back into a close-up of the action in the POW camp.

On the overhead image of the POW camp, a swarm of human bodies could now be seen clustered near the large, open center. Left open in the middle was the landing field where Alliance shuttles were touching down and lifting off in what appeared a calmly choreographed operation. Geary called up a screen for one of Marines controlling the evacuation and saw a scene of seeming bedlam, the sky painted with the aftereffects of Alliance bombardments and hell-lance fire, peoples rushing here and there, shuttles dropping fast, loading liberated POWs as quickly as they could pack the bodies in, then leaping back upward. It took a moment to spot the order hidden behind the frantic activity. The officers among the POWs were apparently keeping the other POWs in clusters until called to send people for a shuttle, and the Marines were sorting out and guiding disoriented former prisoners while shouting everyone into maintaining discipline. To one side he saw battle armor labeled with Colonel Carabali’s ID huddled next to a Marine shuttle with a couple of other Marines standing watch over her while she doubtless concentrated on the movements of her units.

“I wonder,” Desjani remarked, “if those former prisoners are trying to figure out if they’re being rescued or if the apocalypse has come.”

“Maybe both. Colonel Carabali, when opportunity permits I’d like your assessment of the operation.”

Her image appeared instantly. “Better than I’d feared, sir. We’ve taken casualties in almost every unit as we withdrew toward the center of the camp, but only Third Company got badly beat-up. Apparently they did stumble into an area intended as a last-ditch defensive zone for the Syndic guards. The evacuation of the liberated POWs is proceeding with no other holdups. I estimate forty minutes until the last POW is off, then another twenty minutes before the last Marine shuttle lifts.”

“Thank you, Colonel. We’ll try to keep the Syndics off your backs until then.”

Carabali frowned in surprise and it took Geary a moment to realize it wasn’t in response to his statement but to something that had come in to her over another channel. “Sir, we’ve got guards and their families trying to surrender in exchange for safe passage out of here.”

“Families?” His stomach clenched as Geary thought about the bombardments hitting the camp.

“Yes, sir. We hadn’t seen any, either. Just a moment, sir.” Carabali turned to some nearby POWs and spoke quickly, then reactivated her circuit with Geary. “The former prisoners say the guards’ families lived outside the camp. The guards must have brought them in for safety when the fighting started on the planet.”

“And then invited a battle on top of their heads?” Geary barked in disbelief.

“Agreed, sir. Our personnel who were imprisoned here say there are extensive underground storage areas in the north portion of the camp and are guessing the guards kept their families safe in those.”

Geary checked the display of the camp quickly, seeing that the northern areas were almost unmarked by fighting. “Thank the living stars they had the brains to do that and not to resist our Marines in that area. What does safe passage mean? Where do they want to go?”

“Wait one, sir.” Carabali passed on the question, then waited for it to be passed to the Syndics and a reply to come back. “Off-planet, sir.”

“Out of the question.”

“They say if they’re left here, it’ll be a death sentence. The revolutionaries in the city demanded the Alliance prisoners from them, and the guards refused to turn them over without proper orders. The guards claim they held off the revolutionaries until we got here, but with the camp shot to hell and so many casualties when they tried to fight us off, they can’t hope to hold out once we leave.”

“Damn.” Geary turned and explained the situation to Rione and Desjani. “Suggestions?”

“If they hadn’t fought us,” Desjani pointed out with some heat, “they’d be able to defend themselves once we left. Besides, we can’t lift them off the planet. None of our ships are configured for that many prisoners. And in any event we don’t owe them any favors after they did their best to chop up our Marines. They dug this hole for themselves.”

Rione looked unhappy, but nodded. “There doesn’t seem any way to assist them at this point, Captain Geary.”

“Yeah, but as long as they keep fighting, we keep losing people.” Geary sat and stared at the display for a moment, letting options cascade through his mind. One caught his attention, and he focused on it, then called Carabali back. “Colonel, here’s what you offer them. They stop all resistance and we stop killing them. Once we’ve lifted all of our people off, we’ll bombard the approaches from the city while the surviving guards and their families withdraw in the other direction. If anyone tries to hit them while we’re still within range, we’ll provide cover. That’s the best deal they’re going to get.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll pass that on and see what they say.”

Five minutes later, as another flight of Syndic aircraft was torn apart in midair, and two more Alliance bombardments blew apart another surface particle-beam battery and a missile launch site preparing to fire, Carabali came back on. “They agree, sir. They say they’re spreading the word for all of the guards to cease resistance and withdraw with their families toward the east side of the camp. They ask that we not engage them.”

“Agreed, Colonel, unless they start shooting at us again.”

“I’ll pass the word for cease-fire, but we’ll keep a strong force watching them, sir.”

Over the next few minutes the movements of the Marines closing on the center of the camp changed, some speeding up to reach the center quicker and others veering off to form a defensive line between the center of the camp and the enemy symbols, which began appearing as the guards broke cover to withdraw toward the east. Geary zoomed in the view, seeing through the dust filling the air infrared signatures that indicated groups of humans appearing and joining the withdrawal. Switching views again gave him a series of windows showing what was being seen by Marines watching the Syndics pull out. Targeting solutions danced on the Marine HUDs as they caught sight of Syndic guards in light battle armor shepherding civilians with no protection at all through the streets of the camp. Weapons were aimed and ready, but the Syndics behaved themselves, moving with haste, and the Marines held their fire. He paused in his sweep through the Marine views as a sergeant’s voice crackled. “Don’t even think about it, Cintora.”

“I was just practicing aiming,” Cintora protested.

“Pull the trigger, and you’ll be up on charges.”

“Sarge, they messed up Tulira and Patal—”

“Lower your weapon now!”

Geary waited a moment longer, but Cintora had apparently realized he wasn’t going to get away with anything and remained silent. If the sergeant hadn’t been alert, or had been as angry with the Syndics as Cintora, it wasn’t hard to imagine what would have happened.

Another urgent message drew Geary back to the big picture. “Our recce drones have spotted a third ground convoy en route the camp from the northwest, and what looks like infiltrators on foot closing from the southwest,” Colonel Carabali reported. “Request both targets be taken under fire by the fleet.”

Geary took a moment to look over the combat systems’ firing solution, then hit approve and watched another barrage of kinetic projectiles hurled down toward the planet.

“Sir, the Free Heradao governing council is requesting a cease-fire.”

“Free Heradao? Weren’t they just the Heradao governing council before?”

“Uh, yes, sir. It’s the same circuits they called on last time and the same transmission ID.”

Geary glanced at Rione. “Any idea what the name change means?”

She looked frustrated. “Probably not a lot. They may have merged with another group of rebels and picked up the ‘free’ from that, or they may have decided ‘free’ sounded better, or there may have been a turnover in their leadership. Or it could be something else. In any event, I wouldn’t assume the name change has any significance for us.”

“You’ve talked to them, though. Are they worth talking to again?”

“No.”

Desjani raised her eyebrows in surprise. “A short and straight answer from a politician,” she muttered too low for Rione to hear. “The living stars have given us a miracle.”

“Thank you, Captain Desjani,” Geary said. “Madam Co-President, please inform the Free Heradao governing council that we will engage any threat against our ships or our personnel on the surface or any forces heading toward the POW camp. If they refrain from posing such threats, we will not strike at them.”

“Sir, we’ve got another problem.” Colonel Carabali looked unhappy, which was a clue that this was a major problem. “My screening forces on the west side of the camp are picking up signs that highly trained enemy forces in maximum-stealth gear are trying to infiltrate past my Marines. Detections are fleeting and small, but our best estimate is that we’re facing perhaps a squad of Syndic Special Forces commandos.”

“How much of a threat are they? Are they just scouts?” Geary asked.

“Their mission profile and some of the signs our gear has picked up indicates they may well be equipped with hupnums, sir.”

“Hupnums?” It sounded like some whimsical creature in a fairy tale.

“Human Portable Nuclear Munitions,” Carabali elaborated.

No wonder Carabali was unhappy. Geary checked the time line. “Colonel, it looks like you’re getting close to being able to pull out. Even if those Syndic commandos manage to plant those things, they’ll have to set the timers to give them time to get free of the blast zone. Why can’t we get out of there well before the timers set off the nukes?”

Carabali shook her head. “Sir, I trained on Alliance hupnums, and everyone in my group, instructors included, believed that the timers on the hupnums were fake. We reasoned that any target worth sneaking in a nuke would be too valuable to risk failing a strike and perhaps having the nuke taken by the enemy during the time required for an individual to egress following planting the weapon.”

Geary stared at her. “Are you saying you assumed the nuke would go off as soon as it was armed?”

“Or very soon afterward, yes, sir. I assume the Syndics would be even more inclined toward that logic, sir. We have to presume the hupnums will detonate immediately after they’ve been placed and armed.”

That blew Geary’s time line all to hell. “Recommendation, Colonel?”

“I’ve diverted two of the shuttles on their return trips long enough to pick up two Persian Donkeys. With those -”

“Persian Donkeys, Colonel?”

Carabali looked surprised that he didn’t know the term. “Mark Twenty-Four personnel grouping simulators.”

“Which do what?”

“They… each simulate a large group of personnel. Each Persian Donkey uses a variety of active measures to create the illusion of many people. Seismic thumpers create ground vibrations appropriate to a crowd moving around, infrared bugs generate heat signatures all over the place, other bugs create audible noise, transmitters generate a level of message traffic and active sensor activity matching that of a military force around the site, and so on. For someone using remote nonvisual sensors, the Donkeys make it look like plenty of people are in a location.”

He got it then. “You want to fool the Syndic commandos into thinking their targets are still present until it’s too late for the Syndics to hit the real evacuation.”

“Yes, sir,” Carabali agreed. “But I need to keep a screening force in place, and by the time I get everyone else lifted, those commandos are going to be close. We can slow them down, but we can’t stop them.” An image appeared on Geary’s display, showing the colonel’s tactical planning screen. “I’ll put the Donkeys here and here, with any line of sight to them blocked from the directions the Syndic commandos are coming in. I’ll need to have platoons of Marines here, here, and here.” Rough, bent arcs formed of individual Marine symbols flashed into existence. “Right after my last evac shuttle lifts, three shuttles will ground at these spots along the edge of the landing area closest to my people. At that point the last three platoons run like hell for the shuttles and boost out of there. The Donkeys will be set to self-destruct immediately afterward.”

Geary studied the plan, nodding. “Does that leave enough time for the last shuttles to get clear if the Syndics realize what’s happening and pop their nukes right then?”

“I don’t know, sir. Probably not, but it’s my best option.”

“Wait a moment, Colonel.” He spun toward Desjani and explained the situation. “What do you think? Is there anything we can do with enemy troops armed with nukes that close to our people’s emergency evac?”

Desjani bent her head in thought for a long moment, then looked over at him. “There may be something we could try. I was only a junior officer, but as best I recall it worked at Calais Star System. A situation a lot like this, with the enemy coming right on the heels of the last shuttles out.”

“What did you do?”

She twitched a humorless smile. “We dropped a saturation bombardment timed to cross paths with the evac shuttles and hit the surface just as the shuttles got enough altitude to clear the danger zone.”

“You’re kidding. Dropping that many rocks through the same planetary airspace that your shuttles are traversing? What did the shuttle pilots think of that plan?”

“They screamed bloody murder. The evacuees weren’t thrilled, either. But we can do what we did then, download the bombardment pattern and planned trajectories of each projectile into the autopilots of the shuttles. In theory, the autopilots can weave a path between the rocks and make it up high enough before the rocks start hitting and blowing the surface sky-high.”

He thought about it. He didn’t like it. But… “You said it worked at Calais?”

“Yes, sir. Mostly it worked, anyway. Not every rock going through atmosphere sticks exactly to its preplanned trajectory. But at Calais we had a lot more shuttles lifting through the barrage than we’ll be worried about here.”

Mostly it worked. Geary called Carabali again. “Colonel, we’ve got an option to support your final lift.”

He outlined the concept Desjani had described. “It’s up to you whether we try it.”

It seemed that he’d finally managed to surprise Carabali. If that was surprise and not horror he was seeing. But the colonel exhaled and nodded. “If we don’t try that, sir, odds are we’ll lose all three birds and the Marines on them. At least this idea offers them all a much better chance. I’ll notify the pilots of the last three shuttles of what’s going to happen.”

“Let me know if none of them want to volunteer so I can canvass the fleet for other pilots.”

Carabali frowned slightly. “They already volunteered, sir. All three of those pilots are Marines. Please inform me when you have details of the bombardment, sir.”

“Will do.” Geary broke the connection with Carabali, leaned back, and took a deep breath. “All right, everybody. We’re going with Captain Desjani’s plan. We need the bombardment as finely timed as possible if those shuttles are going to have a chance.”

“It’s not exactly my plan,” Desjani muttered, then swung into action. “Lieutenant Julesa, Lieutenant Yuon, Ensign Kaqui, pull up the Marine evac plan as most recently amended by Colonel Carabali and run a bombardment plan through the combat systems. We need something that will saturate the area the shuttles have left, and coordinated with the Marine time line so that the bombardment hits within five seconds of the shuttles clearing the danger zone.”

“Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon asked, “what if one or more of the shuttles develops a problem, or gets delayed otherwise?”

“Assume no delays. All three of the last birds have to lift exactly on time, or they’ll die at the hands of the Syndics. I need that bombardment pattern five minutes ago.”

The watch-standers leaped into action while Geary watched his display. On the portion given over to the ground battle, he could see the sudden appearances and disappearances of enemy symbols as traces of the Syndic commandos were picked up by Marine sensors. The Marines were firing on every detection, but apparently not getting hits against the extremely difficult targets moving through an environment full of things to hide behind. As the Syndic commandos snuck ever closer to the landing field, the Marines were slowly falling back themselves, trying to maintain a screen between the Syndics and the center of the camp.

On the field itself, the last liberated POWs were being bundled into shuttles, and Carabali was calling in her other Marines. The two Persian Donkeys were visible on the display, busily churning out indications of large groups of people still near the landing field.

A lot of things were going to have to work right. He hated depending on that.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Desjani asked. “It’s just like at Corvus, dealing with Syndic Special Forces commandos on a suicide mission.”

“I guess it is sort of like that,” Geary admitted.

“You didn’t kill the ones at Corvus.” She turned a questioning gaze on him. “But we’re going to nail these.”

“Right. At Corvus I wanted to underline the futility of the commandos’ effort and deny them martyrdom. Here”—Geary waved at his display—“they’re going to get their martyrdom, but they still won’t accomplish their mission. We will accomplish our mission despite their best efforts, though, making their deaths meaningless. In any event, there’s no other way to stop these commandos except by ensuring they get blown away.”

“Captain!” Lieutenant Julesa called. “The bombardment plan is ready.”

“Shoot it to me and Captain Geary.”

Geary studied the result, fighting down qualms as he saw the trajectories of over a hundred kinetic bombardment rounds intersecting with those of the three shuttles, then saw the pattern hit just as the shuttles cleared the danger zone from the bombardment. “Well, Captain Desjani, let’s hope this plan of yours works.”

“You can call it my plan if it works,” Desjani objected.

Geary hit the commands sending the plan to Colonel Carabali to pass on to her shuttles and transmitting it as an execute order to the ships tasked with being in the right positions at exactly the right time to launch the bombardments. Within moments, the battleship Relentless called back. “Sir, is this plan right?”

“It’s right. We need it executed perfectly.”

“That’s putting it mildly, sir. The Marines are okay with this?”

“They’re okay with it.”

“Very well, sir. We’ll put the rocks where they’re supposed to go and make sure they hit at the right time.”

“Thanks. Reprisal, any problems on your end?”

Reprisal’s commanding officer answered about ten seconds later. “No, sir. We’re loading the maneuvers and firing commands into Reprisal’s systems right now. We’ll do our part.”

Geary gazed bleakly at his display. Colonel Carabali was piling into one of the last shuttles on the POW camp’s landing field along with the last Marines on the field. The three platoons holding off the Syndic commandos were still falling back as they tried to slow the commandos’ infiltration toward the landing field. The momentary detections of the commandos showed them getting far too close to the landing field for comfort.

“Here come the last three shuttles,” Desjani noted.

The operations watch called out right afterward. “Final evac shuttles landing in five, four, three, two, one, they’re down.”

All of the Marines in the last three platoons seemed to bolt as one for the shuttles. Geary wondered how long it would take the Syndic commandos to realize what was happening.

“Relentless and Reprisal are launching the covering bombardment,” the combat-systems watch reported.

Geary sat, watching the rocks head downward to where the three shuttles sat, the Marines just now reaching the shuttles and hurling themselves inside. On one side of the display, two time lines counted down, one for the shuttles to get off the ground and the other for the moment of impact for the bombardment. The two sets of numbers were far too close together for comfort. Dauntless’s bridge was as quiet as he’d ever heard it, quiet in that unnatural way when people waited to see the outcome of a life-or-death gamble.

“The shuttles have to lift within the next ten seconds,” Desjani reported.

“Yeah. I see.” He could also see a few final Marines sprinting toward their craft.

“Shuttle one is in the air, climbing at maximum,” the operations watch reported. “We’re seeing ground fire aimed at the shuttles. The Syndic commandos are breaking cover to engage the last shuttles. Shuttle defensive systems are firing back and engaging protective countermeasures. Shuttle three is in the air. Shuttle two reports a problem sealing the main compartment hatch.” Geary felt his breathing freeze.

“Shuttle two is lifting with the hatch open. Speed and protection will be compromised.”

He could see the action, the tracks of enemy fire reaching for the shuttles as they tore skyward, counterfire from the shuttles racing downward to strike among the indications of Syndic commandos, who still remained almost invisible in their stealth gear. And, from above, just over a hundred bombardment projectiles seconds from passing through the same airspace as the shuttles. It was strange how very long a second could be.