War World: Cyborg Revolt Read online

“Green Hawk never got off the ground. We traced the bogies to Fort Kursk. Red and Blue are on their way there now.”

  “Address me as ‘sir.’”

  There was a laugh in his voice as Landau said, “Aye, aye, sir.” But the tone changed suddenly. “Apologies, Fourth Rank Boyle. Sir.”

  “Screens up,” Basson called. The wall screen lit up to display a terrain map. Two specks moved across it. Robots one and two, moving toward what High Command assumed was the enemy’s Headquarters. Boyle watched in fascination. They moved inexorably, toward Fort Kursk.

  “Kursk is ours,” Boyle muttered.

  “Not anymore,” Basson said. “Cummings and his militia took it back half an hour ago.”

  Took it. From Soldiers. Kursk was held by Cyborgs!

  “The cattle can fight,” Boyle said grudgingly. He remembered the Academy professor, the odd one who had said they must never speak of the enemy as cattle, because “that term creates distorted expectations that might affect decisions made on the battlefield, and certainly after victory.”

  I have a nasty feeling that Haven is going to prove the professor right.

  The dots moved slowly on the screen, toward Kursk. Toward Brigadier Cummings.

  “Kill Cummings and the war is over,” Rating Basson said excitedly.

  Brigadier-General Gary Cummings was commander-in-chief of the Haven Militia and a former Imperial officer. Cummings was the Havener behind the missile attack on the Fomoria. This they had learned from one of the survivors of the diversionary action Cummings had used to draw them away while his trap was sprung. Since that fated day, that saw the destruction of the Saurons’ only interstellar spacecraft, a blood price had been placed on Cumming’s life; a price any Sauron on Haven would give his life to earn.

  Fort Kursk had been General Cummings’ former headquarters. After the destruction of the Fomoria, the fort had quickly been secured. Ever since, they’d been divided about what to do with it. Deathmaster Quilland wanted it nuked. Cyborg Rank Köln saw it as an asset for the future; an invaluable tool for consolidating Sauron power. Diettinger decided with Köln and left a detachment to guard the fort.

  For once, First Citizen Diettinger had underestimated the enemy.

  “I thought we had Fort Kursk all locked up tight,” Basson said.

  “We don’t know how many men the Haveners sent against it,” Boyle replied.

  “True, and we do know the cattle here can fight,” Patrol Leader Gault said.

  We’re learning respect for the Haveners, thought Boyle. Even if it is the hard way. They fight more like Soldiers than the Imperials we’re used to slaughtering.

  On the screen the dots converged on Fort Kursk, then wheeled away. Weapons launched—

  There was a flare through the protective glass with the large jagged-edged red pattern that indicated a nuclear explosion. Ten megatons. The men cheered. A mushroom cloud bloomed over Fort Kursk.

  “Silence in the ranks.”

  Suddenly the bunker swayed as if it were in the throes of an earthquake. Roger grabbed onto a counter and held on.

  The tech working the seismograph said, “It came from Fort Kursk, our Hawk egg. There won’t be any more bogies from that direction.”

  “We got him,” someone shouted.

  “The butcher’s dead.”

  …Along with how many of our own? Roger asked himself. But it was worth it. Cummings who had killed the Fomoria… Cummings was a goal worth dying for.

  Several techs and the three Soldiers applauded.

  “Don’t take the casualty count until you’ve tagged the toes,” Roger replied, repeating an old Soldier maxim.

  “Fourth Rank, we are receiving enemy radio signals,” the tech at the interception console said. “Hard to read, what with static and code, but they’re certainly talking a lot.”

  “Try and get a directional on them. When you do, call the Firebases. If we triangulate while Hawk Red still has fuel and weapons.”

  Everyone turned back to their work with grim determination. Today had been a black day of the last of the Sauron Race, but if they had taken out Brigadier Cummings…it would be the biggest victory since the Landing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I

  First Citizen Diettinger sat in his chair in the Citadel Command Post with Deathmaster Quilland and Lady Althene at his side. The attack on Firebase Five had been unexpected and devastating. Once again, they had underestimated Brigadier Cummings and the Haven Volunteers. But it was the unexpected attack on Fort Kursk and its subsequent fall that had forced his hand. He had believed Kursk to be one of the Shangri-La Valley’s most strategic military assets and had hated to destroy it with a high-yield thermonuclear bomb.

  Had the Haven Volunteers been able to hold onto the fort it might well have become a rallying point for Haven resistance; something he could not, would not, allow.

  The big picture was that Diettinger was trying to do too much with too little. A typical Sauron planetary invasion would involve an entire fleet with two to six full divisions of Soldiers, depending on anticipated resistance, population and industrial capabilities. He had not done the Haven invasion on the cheap; he was doing it on a shoestring, with one ship and a single regiment.

  Standard Sauron invasion plans required establishing a firebase at every medium-sized town and city. Each firebase would be garrisoned with at least two full companies of Soldiers with their own heavy weapons unit and air transport. On Haven, he had only six firebases for the entire Shangri-La Valley, which contained roughly eighty percent of Haven’s population and almost all of its manufacturing and industrial capacity.

  Each of the six Haven firebases had a minimum of two platoons and only the most distant, Firebases Three and Six, had any air transport. As it was, after the Cossack debacle, they were critically short of helicopters and the three passenger planes they had confiscated were stationed at Firebase One, near the Citadel.

  Firebase Five, situated between Fort Kursk and Castell City, was one of the most important firebases and was garrisoned with three platoons, one a heavy weapons platoon, and several fighters. The attack there had coincided with the takeover of Fort Kursk. He had been forced by events to destroy Kursk with a thermonuclear bomb, rather than leave it in Cummings’ hands. The fort was too riddled with secret tunnels and passages to guarantee its safety. Furthermore, the number of casualties required to retake Fort Kursk and hold it were unacceptable.

  Diettinger had sent a reserve company of Soldiers from the Citadel to reinforce Firebase Five and to help fix the reported damage. The losses there had been high, but not critically so. “What do you think?” he asked the Deathmaster.

  “I think you did the right thing, First Citizen,” Quilland responded. “Without more military assets, we were never going to hold Kursk. The militiamen had been hiding in old tunnels built at the end of the CoDominium era that were not included on any plans we were able to obtain. It appears that entire hill was crisscrossed with passages and secret storage caches. Its loss is unfortunate, but not critical since Castell City is still recovering from our initial strikes.”

  “Furthermore,” Lady Althene added, “Brigadier Cummings will no longer have access to Fort Kursk’s stockpiles of weapons and ammunition.” “As you’ve said yourself, many times, First Citizen,” Quilland added, “we can only do so much with the limited military assets at hand.”

  II

  “Still static, sir.”

  “You’re sure it’s static, not jamming?” Brigadier-General Gary Cummings asked.

  Sergeant Alice Hoskins shook her head. “Just the bomb plus Haven’s usual conditions.” A month ago she’d been a civilian tech in the Communications Ministry. Now—

  “Carry on, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir, but—when are we going to move?”

  “As soon as I finish talking with the chief of staff.”

  Cummings looked at his watch. It had stopped. EMP, probably. One more damned thing to worry about. At least he
didn’t have to worry about delayed radiation effects. Dosages that threatened to kill him before the Saurons did were another matter.

  But then no one had thought that the Saurons would use anything on Fort Kursk heavier than a neutron bomb or tactical nuclear warhead. If we had been an hour closer to the Fort….

  Cummings looked downhill to where the last of the rubble was being shoveled onto the graves. Forty-eight Militiamen. The rubble was as much of a grave marker as they’d ever have. Ten times more were part of the dust cloud over the plateau where Fort Kursk had stood. It was cold comfort that most of them had died before the bomb hit, killed in retaking the Fort and reactivating its weapons systems. But hundreds of the best would have seen the fireball. Or worse.

  The possibility of taking out those fighters had been remote, but remote possibilities were the rule when fighting Saurons. It would be days before Cummings would learn the result of the stay-behind missile company’s sacrifice. Even longer, probably, before he learned how much damage Major Cook’s battalion had added to Firebase Five.

  At least we hurt them. Enough? Last month it had been Major Seastrum and his company, drawing the Saurons away from the missile team that destroyed the Sauron spaceship. Then Colonel Nelson Harrigan in the belated defense of Fort Fornova. Next month it will be somebody else.

  I swear by Laura and my daughter’s memory that I will never get used to it.

  “We’re ready to move whenever you give the word, sir,” Colonel Anton Leung said.

  Cummings nodded. The nervous attentiveness in Leung’s Tartar eyes reminded him of how he himself watched over Marshal Blaine during the liberation of Lavaca. Had old age caught him already at seventy-three?

  Well, maybe not old age—not since his regeneration treatments—just long service. He’d spent his whole adult life in uniform, at the Marine Academy on Friedland, then in the Imperial Marines, then as Marine Commandant of Haven and finally these last seventeen years as Commander-in-Chief, Haven Militia.

  That’s one post I won’t be retired from!

  At his age, he should be a gentleman farmer, close to Whitehall, raising lettuce. For amusement I can shoot stomach snouts and hoist a glass or two with Albert Hamilton. Cummings chuckled at the thought. Sure he’d be welcome at Whitehall! But it was too late for that now, not with every Sauron on Haven looking for him. Some friend, to carry that scent to a friend’s door.

  He’d be deserting, too, not retiring; the Saurons would dog his footsteps. He was a marked man, the one responsible for the destruction of Dol Guldur, even if it was the shuttle and its passengers he’d been aiming for. He shook his head; this was the wrong time for senile musings about might-have-beens.

  No one had expected the Saurons to use a nuke on Fort Kursk, so the resistance had lost a pile of supplies as well as the stay-behind team. All they’d managed to get clear was a few horse-loads of medical supplies and small-arms ammunition.

  The rest of the Brigade was scattered between Redemption and the Miracle Mountains. With intensified Sauron surveillance, it was best they stayed in small groups until they reached New Survey.

  “Colonel, send Charlie Company on ahead to New Survey. We’ll veer west, to Greensward. I have to warn the Baron about what we’ve unleashed here today.” And see my daughter for the first time in almost a year.

  “A radio signal could easily be picked up by the Saurons,” the Colonel said. “We know they have satellites up. What about a tight-beam message?”

  Cummings jerked his thumb toward the site of Fort Kursk. “The equipment’s back there. This time, we’re really on our own.”

  Colonel Leung shrugged his broad shoulders with the weary resignation of a man who has seen it all, but is willing to see it all again if that’s what his CO orders.

  The Brigadier continued, “We’ll send out scouts as we march, to trade ammunition for drugs and mounts. I’ve heard of some remarkable things being done with local plants.”

  It was Leung’s turn to point at the plateau. “Anybody who helps us could be risking that.”

  “Some of them won’t care. Others—we’ll put on a convincing ‘bandit’ act for them. Let them tell the Saurons we scared them witless.”

  Leung laughed sharply. The laugh turned into a barking cough, and the cough into a siege that left him bent over and gagging.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Nothing that a standard year in a warm, moist climate wouldn’t cure, General.”

  “I’ll buy you a ticket to Tanith as soon as I can find a travel agency.”

  Colonel Leung wiped blood-flecked lips and grimaced. “The Saurons may not believe we’d be willing to rob our own people—”

  “You don’t know what the Saurons will believe about what they call ‘cattle’ until you’ve been on a Sauron-pacified world. On Lavaca—oh never mind, that was twenty-seven years ago. Let’s stick to the problems we have right here. I want to avoid another engagement entirely until we hear from the infiltrators.”

  “No word yet from Major Cook?”

  Leung’s tone wasn’t entirely professional, but then his son and daughter-in-law had gone in with Cook’s company. His wife hadn’t lived to see the coming of the Saurons, only the breakdown of order on Haven after the Imperials left. The Colonel’s other son and his family had died when Castell City was nuked.

  “Nothing since they told us to expect an air strike,” Cummings answered. Cook’s company, with short-range rockets and demolitions to follow up the strategic strike had reported themselves in position. Operation Shutoff had worked as planned, cutting of key communications and detection equipment just before the strike on the Sauron Firebase. Cook had reported initial results, including the destruction of one fighter and the ammunition dump.

  There hadn’t been a word since.

  Cummings refused to believe that a hundred and eighty handpicked troopers could have gone into the bag without a peep. They were probably just too busy evading or fighting Saurons to find a place where they could punch a signal through.

  It didn’t help, either, that Cat’s Eye was not only up but having a first-class radio storm. At times like this, even if a message got through, it needed a couple of repeats before you could be sure you had an un-garbled version.

  “They’ll turn up, one way or another,” Leung said.

  More likely dead than alive, probably, Cummings thought, but not without leaving a mark on the Saurons, either.

  “Communication gear’s packed,” Sergeant-Major Slater called out.

  Cummings nodded, then turned to Leung. “The Comm Section has a spare mule.”

  Motorized vehicles weren’t extinct on Haven, but driving one outside Sauron-occupied territory was asking for trouble. A vehicle’s heat signature was guaranteed to be picked up by satellite, leading to a hypersonic crowbar rammed up your exhaust.

  After eight standard weeks of the Saurons, Haven was already headed back toward the Dark Ages. Baron Hamilton had known what he was doing when he fortified Castle Whitehall and put his men into durasteel long johns.

  Even the horses and muskylopes that gave the strike force what mobility it had were mostly for weapons and equipment. Officers were the only unwounded troopers mounted when they turned their backs on the plateau.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I

  Over-Assault Leader Helm watched from outside the command bunker as sentries halted the delegation from Evaskar well outside the perimeter of Firebase One. It was a ragtag outfit dressed in what passed among the locals as their finery. To Helm they looked like a band of gypsies. It was hard to see any use for them, but Deathmaster Quilland’s orders had been firm. “Inform these cattle of their new status. They are former bureaucrats, so they’ll have no loyalty to anything but themselves; still, they may turn out to be useful tools.”

  The sentries trained weapons on the cattle and from a quarter kilometer away he heard the Assault Leader say, “Surrender all weapons and do exactly as we say, when we say, or you will die imme
diately.” A bit chatty, Helm decided, but it did get the point across.

  The delegation, to give them the benefit of a doubt that they were anything other than a lost circus troupe, dropped numerous primitive edged weapons and obsolete slug throwers. The resulting clatter was clearly audible.

  “Do not test us,” the Assault Leader ordered, knocking one of the Haveners off his horse with a slap. “You will follow my vehicle. Any deviation will result in death.”

  Helm listened to the cattle bray; if they had any idea of just how good Sauron hearing was, they would have stitched their mouths shut. But they were cattle, after all. It was almost amusing how they connived among themselves, as if they could curry or buy favor from their new overlords. If only they knew, he mused. They are our tools now. Poor ones, perhaps, but ours nevertheless—and ours, alone.

  He returned to the command bunker before the delegation came into normal human sight. It was best if they believed him completely disinterested in their future welfare—which was very close to the truth. Nor did he like long negotiations, especially not with cattle.

  Over-Assault Leader Helm came out of the bunker when the lead Waltimire tank arrived. He examined the delegation with studied contempt, noting their pathetic attempts at finery. “Do you represent the city?”

  “We do,” answered a high voiced man of Asian background, whom Helm dismissed as a eunuch.

  “And we are here, good sir, to—”

  “Lady Althene Diettinger authorizes me to say that your city will now be known as Núrnen. All weapons must be surrendered and a curfew is now in force, violators will be subject to summary execution. City government shall be transferred to Sauron administration forthwith, and full cooperation is required. Any resistance will be met with our wrath. That is all.”

  “But… why?” a woman delegate asked.

  Over-Assault Leader Helm turned and went back into the bunker. He listened with amusement as the departing delegates worried over the meaning of the new name of the town. No talk of resistance, only a kind of simian curiosity. Former Second Rank Althene was quite brilliant in her way; she had supplied the name as well as the plan. She truly was an excellent match for First Citizen Diettinger.