Lunar Assault: Mechanized Warfare on a Galactic Scale (Metal Legion Book 4) Read online

“Colonel,” Xi explained, “I believe the Zeen encountered unexpected difficulties with their first use of the FTL system. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to hurry things along. I gave it my best effort, sir.”

  Jenkins seemed to relax. “All right. You’d better make your report to Colonel Li. The sooner we get these ‘modifications’ moving forward, the sooner we can go.”

  “Yes, sir,” Xi acknowledged, and the two of them made their way to the Bonhoeffer’s CAC where Colonel Li oversaw the disembarkation of the Bonhoeffer’s last crew.

  But some of those crew were less willing than others to follow Li’s orders.

  “We’re not finished with repairs to four of the mechs, Colonel,” Chief Rimmer insisted. “We’re not leaving until those mechs’ systems are green across the board.”

  “Your people have done their jobs, Ace,” Li said irritably. “Your orders were to make them combat-ready, not parade-worthy. You’ve done your bit.”

  “Respectfully, sir,” Rimmer jutted his chin defiantly, “one of us has never worked a drop-deck before, and the other has spent his entire career running them. If anyone is going to provide a lecture on the subject—”

  Li held up a hand to stop the tirade. “Arnie, I appreciate the support, as I’m sure our Metalheads do.” He tilted his chin toward the approaching Xi and Jenkins. “But what you’re talking about amounts to several hours’ work just to tighten a few bolts and run a series of diagnostics on mechs that, just ten hours ago, were down-checked for damage sustained during Brick Top. You’ve surpassed even your lofty standards, Chief, just by getting them field-ready. It’s time to call it a day. The general’s yacht is ready to leave, and I think it’s time for your people to board it.”

  “Colonel, with respect,” Rimmer reiterated, although this time his voice was suffused with genuine deference. “This is probably the most technically difficult drop in the Metal Legion’s history. It can’t be done via remote, and it can’t be done without a full drop-deck team.” His visage softened, but his eyes remained diamond hard as he finished, “Our entire careers…hell, our entire lives, have prepared us for this moment, sir. We absolutely will not step back. So, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ve got a drop-deck to run.”

  He turned smartly on his heel, making brief eye contact with Xi before stopping to address her.

  “Captain Xi,” Rimmer said officiously, producing one of many data slates from his multi-pouched belt. “Elvira’s repairs were completed forty minutes ago, and her systems are green across the board. She’s ready for your inspection, and my people will make whatever additional adjustments you deem necessary.”

  Xi was moved by the longtime veteran’s determination and resolve, and nodded approvingly while accepting the slate. “Thank you, Chief.”

  “Ma’am.” Rimmer saluted before exiting the CAC, causing Li to chuckle.

  “He’s a good man,” Li said, and Xi thought she saw a slight glisten in the colonel’s eyes as he turned to face her. His expression darkened almost instantly. “Something tells me I’m not going to like what you’ve got to say.”

  Xi tucked the data slate Rimmer had given her into her pocket. “The Vorr and the Zeen have several modifications they’re prepared to make to the Bonhoeffer, Colonel.”

  Li snorted. “If those squids and crabs think they’ll set foot…or claw or tentacle on my ship…” he stammered.

  “No, sir,” Xi replied promptly. “Not a single Zeen or Vorr will need access to the Bonhoeffer’s interior to make these modifications.”

  Li and Jenkins shared looks of mutual uncertainty before Li grunted. “Now I know I’m not going to like it.”

  “They want to cover the entire ship in a meter of…nanotech resin?” Li blurted after Xi completed her report on the proposed modifications. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I field-tested the material myself, Colonel,” Xi reiterated. “Using a sidearm from the DC03, I checked the integrity of the stuff, and it confirmed the Vorr’s schematics. It would take dozens of railguns strikes or a direct hit from a Republican mass driver to punch through a meter-thick shell of it applied to the Bonhoeffer’s forward hull. As robust as Luna One’s defensive grid is, it doesn’t include a Republican mass driver.”

  “Not to our knowledge.” Li scowled.

  “Colonel,” Jenkins put in, “we’ve got a narrowing window here. Surviving final approach was a concern from the outset of this operation’s planning phase. Even with Jem’s proposed virtual takeover of Luna One’s sensor grid, we’re still looking at no better than a coin-flip chance of the Bonhoeffer reaching the drop point. This stuff might just push the numbers far enough in our favor to put Legion tracks in virgin regolith.”

  Li rubbed his forehead irritably but eventually relented. “Fine. Tell them to get started. But I need all the technical data regarding this stuff. We’ll need to adapt to our new mass profile, and also shut down the rotating compartments so they can worm this…stuff into every exterior nook and cranny. That means zero-gee aboard this vessel for the duration of this operation…and probably for the rest of the Bonhoeffer’s service.”

  Xi winced, knowing he was right. Once the Zeen coated the Bonhoeffer with the nano-resin, it would turn the ship into a mobile brick with just engine ports, sensor arrays, and drop bays exposed. Not even the Bonhoeffer’s weapons could be left exposed since doing so would compromise the ship’s ability to deploy its mechs. Besides, if they got into a shooting war with Luna One before they were treads down on the Moon’s surface, the operation was already a failure.

  One way or another, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer was about to end its storied service to the Terran Republic. Even though Xi had briefly bounced back and forth between Elvira and Devil Crab earlier in her career, she had still formed a profound attachment to the Scorpion-class—and she had only been with the Legion for a couple of years. Colonel Li had served the Terran Armor Corps with distinction for half a century, the vast majority of which had been aboard the Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

  Xi shuddered to think of the emotional turmoil he must have been going through. “Thank you, Colonel.” Xi nodded, handing him the data slate she had prepared. “Tight-beam your acknowledgment on the indicated channel and the Zeen will commence the work.”

  Li reviewed the slate’s contents before affixing his signature to it and transmitting as Xi had suggested. He turned to her. “I think it’s time you filled us in on what you saw aboard that…base, Captain Xi.”

  Jenkins nodded in agreement, and Xi felt the eyes of Sergeant Major Trapper and also those of Colonel Moon, the Bonhoeffer’s Commander Intercept Group, the CIG, as she prepared to deliver her report…which contained some undeniably disturbing news.

  “They only let me see a little bit of the structure’s interior, but every single compartment I saw was filled with Zeen insectaurs,” she explained. “They let me tour what they called a ‘small sub-hive,’ that contained no fewer than fifty warships.”

  “When you say ‘warships…’” Trapper said leadingly.

  Xi nodded direly. “Most were between one hundred fifty and two hundred meters from bow to stern, but they were nowhere near as uniform as the vehicles we saw back on Shiva’s Wrath. I asked why that was, but got a stonewall in reply. One thing I did manage to get out of them is that they claim not to have an extensive ground force. They developed the vehicles we encountered on Shiva’s Wrath primarily because the Vorr requested them to, but it seems there’s some hesitation on the Zeen’s part to give that particular project maximum support.”

  Li cocked his head dubiously. “You’re saying that the majority of the Zeen military assets are spacecraft and that their worldship is stuffed full of them?”

  “That’s the impression I got, sir,” Xi agreed. “But again, I was only exposed to what they wanted me to see, and they weren’t exactly forthcoming on my lines of inquiry.”

  “You make it sound like they’re distrustful of us,” Jenkins mused.

  “That’s one way to
look at it.” Xi nodded grimly. “Another way would be to say they were ready to declare humanity was subservient to Jemmin and worthy of being ‘eaten’ for supporting Jemmin, knowingly or otherwise. They might have made good on that threat if I hadn’t presented the ‘credentials’ I received from the Zeen back on Shiva’s Wrath.”

  A pin drop would have been deafening in the seconds that followed. Xi knew it wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear, but her job was to report events to the best of her ability so that her superiors could make the most informed decisions possible.

  “That’s,” Colonel Moon mused, “not exactly encouraging.”

  “It’s what we’ve got.” Jenkins shrugged. “And it’s more than we had. A lot more. Good work, Captain,” he said with feeling. “Is there anything else of note you’d like to report?”

  Xi shook her head confidently. “Only to say that the Zeen really, really dislike Jemmin. I think their entire preoccupation with symmetry and asymmetry stems from the fact that the Jem’un were biologically asymmetrical, and given the history between the Jem’un and the Zeen, asymmetry was elevated from an ugly or discordant feature to one worthy of eradication. Their hatred of the Jem’un, and Jemmin, over the destruction of their homeworld is so driving…so all-consuming that even if I did understand it fully, I’d have no way to express it with words. Destroying Jemmin might be the fundamental purpose of their existence. It seems to inform every facet of Zeen society to one degree or another.”

  Trapper turned to Moon and Li. “Hatred like that is irrational. It doesn’t just pop up and persist without a whole lot of help.”

  “Agreed,” Li nodded. “Someone is manipulating them against Jemmin.”

  “Are the Vorr behind it?” Moon asked, prompting Xi to shake her head.

  “I don’t think so,” she said firmly. “They say they didn’t even know about the Vorr until a few decades ago, which tracks with the Vorr’s account and with Jem’s. It’s possible they’re all in on some major deception, but—”

  “Occam’s Razor,” Jenkins interrupted, agreeing with Xi. “The most likely scenario here is the simplest one: they’re all telling the truth to a significant degree, or at least that they’re not actively conspiring to mislead us.”

  “For all their social peculiarities,” Xi nodded deferentially to her CO, “the Zeen are remarkably forthright about most things. I guess you could consider some of my rebuffed inquiries to have related to their equivalent of national security.”

  “We’ve all got to keep those cards close to the chest,” Trapper grudgingly allowed.

  Colonel Li turned to Sergeant Major Trapper. “Sergeant Major, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not formally request that you board the general’s yacht. Your name and reputation hold a lot of weight in the TAF, and I can think of no one better to debrief the Joint Chiefs than you.”

  “Fat fucking chance, Li.” Trapper scoffed. “There’s a very good reason I stuck at sergeant major, and it had nothing to do with my aptitude or lack of opportunity for advancement. The pay bump wasn’t worth the cost of shaking hands with those bastards on a monthly basis. I’ve avoided debriefings of that type for fifty-two years, and I am not about to surrender that particular patch of high ground.”

  “Luna One is the most heavily-fortified installation in human history,” Li argued.

  “Which is why we’re sneaking in the back door,” Trapper countered. “Only a fool would go head-on against the Moon after Luna One knocked the Canary Islands out with mass drivers and wiped out the entire eastern seaboard of North America. Even a century and a half ago, facing literally everything the Yanks could throw at it, Luna One didn’t suffer so much as a single scratch before that tsunami erased half of the American civilization. The next day, Luna One pummeled half of California into the ocean, bringing the death toll to nearly one out of every two men, women, and children in the Americas.” His bushy brows lowered thunderously. “Fuckers made Mao’s Great Leap Forward look like riot control with rubber bullets and tear gas in comparison to the hell they unleashed on the Old West.”

  “Which is why forty more Terran soldiers can hardly be expected to make the difference,” Li pressed, and for some reason, Xi felt an unexpected twinge of shame as Trapper accurately outlined the events of America’s last days as a sovereign nation. She knew she’d done nothing, said nothing, and even thought nothing in support of the atrocity that had secured China’s victory in Earth’s last World War, but for reasons not immediately clear to her, she felt a measure of guilt for those events.

  “It’s not about the body count, Colonel.” Trapper smirked, snapping her focus back to the present. “It’s about having the right soldier in the right place at the right time. My people won’t break, and they won’t bend. We’re going down there, so cut the yacht loose and let’s get to work.”

  “Hear, hear,” Colonel Moon agreed.

  “Agreed.” Xi nodded, drawing a scowl from Li before the Bonhoeffer’s CO finally relented.

  “All right.” Li sighed. “Cut the yacht loose.”

  A few seconds later, the general’s yacht disembarked, loaded with the Bonhoeffer’s engineers, gunners, and other personnel made unnecessary by the Zeen resin shell. Only a skeleton command crew remained to operate the warship’s systems. Along with Chief Rimmer’s First and Second Shifts, Colonel Moon’s top twenty pilots, Trapper’s forty troopers, and the Metal Legion mech crews, one hundred twenty-three Terrans remained aboard the venerable warship as the Zeen began the process of encasing the battered but still mighty vessel in a thick coat of nano-resin.

  Two dozen ships, appearing like bulbous puffer-fish to Xi’s eyes, slowly encircled the Bonhoeffer and rained a steady stream of the material onto its hull. Their application was extremely precise, leaving just drop decks, engine ports, and a few key sensor systems exposed.

  The process took several hours to complete, during which time Admiral Wallace’s people remained surprisingly silent while standing off just beyond the Bonhoeffer’s nominal engagement range.

  Of course, had the quartet of Sleipnir corvettes chosen to attack, the Bonhoeffer would have been totally defenseless against them.

  Thankfully, no one felt the need to inform Admiral Wallace of that fact.

  2

  Fleet Commands

  “This is Admiral Wallace of the Terran Republic’s 8th Fleet,” Wallace’s commanding voice stated over all major hailing frequencies. “Bonhoeffer Actual is hereby ordered to disengage from the foreign planetoid and its ships. This is sovereign Terran territory, and as the local commander of Terran military assets, it is my duty to secure that sovereignty by any and all means at my disposal. Unidentified alien vessels are ordered to disengage from Terran assets and return to their moorings. Failure to comply will be met with deadly force. All Terran assets are ordered to assist 8th Fleet in securing the foreign planetoid and its attachments. Wallace out.”

  Li and Jenkins exchanged looks of uncertainty, and both men kept an eye on the secure comm line. When no priority message came over that line, Jenkins’ confusion grew.

  “Why would he broadcast a general hail?” Jenkins asked. “If he really wants us to participate, he would have transmitted direct orders via P2P.”

  “He might think we’re too close to the Zeen worldship to risk a secure link being intercepted,” Li mused. “Besides, we’ve still got a dozen of those spunk-throwers out there coating my hull.”

  “Wallace is a prick,” Trapper opined, “but he’s not a fool. He’s working an angle.”

  “But what?” Colonel Moon cocked his head skeptically.

  “You’d have to ask him.” Trapper inclined his chin to the priority comm station.

  “If he didn’t initiate, we shouldn’t either,” Jenkins replied. “Let’s just play along and see where he’s going with this.”

  “That means answering.” Li grunted, picking up the mic and keying into the hailing frequencies. “8th Fleet, this is Bonhoeffer Actual. We cannot comply with you
r orders at this time. We—”

  “This is Deep Currents of Radiant Warmth.” The Vorr’s distinctly feminine, auto-translated voice overrode Li’s on the comm, cutting him off mid-sentence. “As a duly-appointed ambassador for the Vorr government, I am authorized to contribute to this conflict in the hope of facilitating its peaceful resolution. We mean the Terran Republic no harm, and in fact seek to forge an alliance with your government so that our nations might navigate this perilous time to a mutually beneficial conclusion. I am willing to come aboard one of your ships as a gesture of good faith so that we might initiate a productive dialogue.”

  Seconds ticked by, during which time the Sleipnir-class corvettes surged toward the moon base. “Vorr ambassador, this is Admiral Wallace.” The admiral’s voice was full of contempt. “If the Vorr played a part in this moon base’s violation of Terran sovereign space, then that is anything but an act of ‘good faith.’ And I can assure you that my government has authorized me to employ deadly force in defense of Terran sovereignty.”

  In reply to the oncoming corvettes, a swarm of Zeen warships emerged from the worldship. A dozen, then two dozen…three dozen…fifty…finally, eighty-one distinct Zeen signatures emerged from the worldship’s surface.

  “Admiral Wallace,” Deep Currents serenely replied, “there is no need for a threat display. The Vorr make no claim that would violate Terran sovereignty. On the contrary, we seek to bolster your Republic’s position against hostile agents, chief among them, the Jemmin. But if a demonstration of force is necessary to establish a productive dialogue between us…” her voice trailed off as the eighty-one Zeen warships adopted a picture-perfect offset diamond formation, “we can assure you that such a demonstration will not require what your people call an ‘encore.’”

  The Zeen ships accelerated even faster than the Sleipnirs as they tore across the void at greater than fifty gees of acceleration. Jenkins quickly realized that they were not aiming to intercept the four Sleipnir-class corvettes, but were instead burning straight toward the wormhole where the majority of 8th Fleet elements were presently deployed.