All for All, page 17
part #3 of Cast Adrift Series
An alien exploded, body scattering blood and guts everywhere, the horror lost within an entire liturgy of horrors. The Pashtali just kept coming, charging to their deaths. He swore as he realised his plasma cannons were on the verge of overheating. They needed to stop firing and yet they couldn't, for fear of being overrun ...
A red icon flashed up on his HUD. Corporal Slattery was dead, blown to hell by her own weapons. The line wavered ... Wesley keyed his communicator, requesting fire support from the nearest available source. They were at danger close ranges, where there was a very good chance orbital fire or surfaced-based missile batteries would accidentally hit his position instead of the enemy, but there was no choice. The enemy were firing as they came ... most of the bolts flashed over their heads, but if they tried to run they'd be shot in the back. He thought he saw a handful of spiders carrying packs and realised, too late, they were suicide runners. The leader exploded, taking out a fire team. Wesley's line wavered and broke.
"Get down," he snapped, as a trio of KEWs struck the enemy lines. The ground heaved so violently he found himself flat on his face, with no clear memory of how he'd gotten there. "Get back!"
He crawled back as the ground shook, time and time again. It seemed incredible that anything could survive such a bombardment - each shot had to be taking out hundreds of aliens - but the Pashtali just kept coming.
Why? Didn't they know they could surrender?
He knew so little about his enemies ... were they insect drones, willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the hive, or did they just think there was no point in trying to surrender? It was possible. The locals might be disinclined to show mercy, even if they were sure the Pashtali ships would return to take revenge. Wesley understood. Humans had never liked being under enemy control, even without the shame and humiliation of being helpless, and when that control snapped ...
A pair of hovertanks glided into position, guns yammering as the retreating squad took cover behind them. Wesley took a moment to catch his breath, then peered west. The enemy were still coming, charging out of the smoke and firing. Some seemed more capable than others, advancing from cover to cover rather than simply running to the sound of the guns. Soldiers? Had they sent a tidal wave of civilians ahead of them, hoping they'd soak up human fire? It was sickening. He knew humans had done their fair share of sickening things over the years, and to each other rather than to alien life forms, but he couldn't recall any mention of anyone doing anything like that. The sheer inhumanity would give humanity's worst monsters pause.
He raised his heavy rifle and snapped off a shot at a pair of advancing aliens carrying a giant missile launcher between them. The first alien fell; the second pointed the launcher at the nearest tank and hit the trigger, firing before he was blasted down himself. The missile slammed into the tank, punching through armour and turning the interior into a fireball. Wesley winced. The tank armour was tough, and he'd seen tanks shrug off hits that would turn an armoured suit into paste, but anything that got through would kill the tankers before they had a chance to bail out. Their remaining armour trapped the blast inside the tank, making sure the crew were screwed. He muttered a silent prayer for the dead as the enemy pushed forward, flowing across the ground like a horde of angry ants. He wondered if that was precisely what they were. Some Pashtali appeared to be individuals, others little more than biological robots.
The horror raged on as more and more aliens slammed into his position, pushing the humans back by weight of numbers. The slaughter was sickening. Each plasma bolt or railgun shell went through dozens of aliens, but there were always more. He gritted his teeth as another suicide runner blew a hole in his lines, hastily plugged with orbital fire before the Pashtali could take advantage. They just kept coming ... he was sure, now, that they were unwilling to surrender, and had determined to take a few humans with them before they died. And ... he glanced at the overall tactical display, shaking his head in disbelief. How many aliens were there? It felt as if he'd personally killed their entire army and they were still coming ...
"Incoming shells," someone snapped. "Duck!"
Wesley barely moved as shells rocketed overhead and crashed down on the enemy lines. The ground heaved, once again. He felt numb as the Pashtali advance seemed to stagger - for a moment, he thought they'd finally broken - before resuming the charge. It was incredible. It was impossible. It was ... he saw an alien rear up and put a plasma bolt through his own brain, the superhot pulse burning through alien flesh and pushing onwards into the next few targets. They staggered, some falling and others somehow carrying on even though shock alone should have killed them. It was just ...
He felt the ground shift under his fleet and looked down, realising - in a flash of horrified insight - what was about to happen. His legs started sinking - he screamed a warning to his men as he kicked down, relying on his servos to launch him into the air. It was dangerous as fuck - the moment he flew up, he was exposed to enemy fire - but there was no other choice. The ground below him boiled, more aliens swarming out of the tunnel and charging at the humans. Wesley cursed and snapped orders to fall back as the line came apart, more and more aliens boiling upwards or charging over the muddy ground. The second tank was blown to hell by a suicide runner, the crew barely having enough time to bail out before it was too late. It didn't save them. They were gunned down before they managed to run to the rear.
"Move," he snapped. The ground shuddered as KEWs slammed down, trying to collapse the tunnels. He was morbidly impressed they'd even been dug under the bombardment. The prospect of being trapped underground would have deterred even the bravest human from trying the same tactic, but ... the aliens had made it work. He supposed the spider-like aliens were more used to burrowing than their human counterparts. The interior of their starships looked like giant anthills. "Hurry ..."
The ground heaved, once again. Wesley turned and ran as more hovertanks appeared to lay down covering fire. The aliens just kept coming ... was there no end to the slaughter? How long had they been fighting? It felt as if they'd been fighting for hours or days or even ... he checked his suit and blinked in surprise. An hour? A mere hour? He felt a shockwave, the impact nearly throwing him to his knees. He'd thought his guys could handle anything, but ...
He breathed a sigh of relief as they linked up with their reinforcements, hastily digging trenches and converting abandoned alien buildings into makeshift strongpoints. The net kept reporting enemy troops popping up behind the lines ... probably coming out of tunnels or lurking in muddy pools. He wondered, suddenly, if the Pashtali were amphibious. If they could draw oxygen directly from water, instead of using breathers, the sea behind the human position might not be the impassable barrier they'd thought. He keyed his communicator, relaying his concerns to his superiors. The Pashtali were desperate. They might try to use the sea to mount a counterattack anyway.
A sudden wave of exhaustion overcame him. He felt as if he'd been fighting for days, not hours. He felt ... he took a long breath, silently grateful none of his men could see him clearly. The suit bleeped, offering a handful of stimulants. Wesley keyed in a no. They were too dangerous, unless the situation was beyond desperate, and even then he'd have second thoughts. The risk of a bad reaction was just too high.
"Here they come," someone shouted. "Brace yourself!"
Wesley staggered up and took his place. And the slaughter went on.
Chapter Eighteen
Base Camp, Tarsus, Tarsus System
Dear holy fucking shit, Naomi thought, as she surveyed the remnants of the alien bases and cities. What the fuck are we fighting?
She'd thought she was inured to horror. She'd seen the aftermath of battles in space - the dead, the wounded - and toured the wreckage after winning the Battle of Earth, but this was different. Dead bodies - mainly Pashtali - lay where they'd fallen, as far as the eye could see. The handful of human and other bodies mixed amongst them seemed grossly outnumbered, yet ... her gorge rose as she saw a headless corpse, lying on the muddy ground. She took a breath and regretted it, instantly, as the stench of hundreds of thousands of rotting bodies assailed her. It had only been a day since the battle had ended, with the death of the last Pashtali, yet the atmosphere was tainted. Worst of all, the heat and moisture were encouraging the bodies to decay quicker.
Her stomach churned. The Pashtali were insane. They could have surrendered, they could have gone into POW camps and waited for liberation or a prisoner exchange, but instead they'd fought to the death. It made no sense! They really were mad. She had promised to accept surrender and she'd meant it, and ... she swallowed hard, tasting bile. How many Pashtali had been killed in a day? It was impossible to even guess how many bodies lay in front of her, decaying in the sun. Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? She doubted she'd ever know.
She heard someone throwing up behind her and carefully didn't turn to see who it was. Nancy Middleton? Olson? One of the shuttle crew? She'd thought it important to see the aftermath of the battle, to gaze upon the bloody scene of death and ... she shook her head, cursing her own mistake. It was easy to forget that icons on the display weren't just lights on the display, that they represented starships crewed by intelligent beings and when they died their crews died too ... here, there was no escaping the reality of what they'd done. She and her forces had had no choice - they'd offered to accept surrender, they'd promised safe conduct - but she still felt as though she'd done something awful. She wondered, morbidly, what galactic opinion would make of it. They had plenty of footage proving the Pashtali had had every chance to surrender - she would have accepted it, right up to the end - but they hadn't even deigned to reply. The nasty cynical part of her mind figured the Pashtali spin doctors were already spreading lies. Too many Galactics would believe them.
"God," Nancy Middleton said. The older woman looked decidedly green around the gills. "Why ...? Why ...?"
"I don't know," Naomi said, tightly. "But I don't like it."
She kept her face under tight control. There was no point in continuing to try to figure out why the Pashtali had refused to accept defeat until killed to the last being. Aliens were alien and the Pashtali more alien than most. Their army might have thought it would be slaughtered if it surrendered, or it might calculate that killing a handful of humans was worth the cost, or it might not have been able to think much of anything. There was very little data on the Pashtali in the files and much of what they did have was contradictory, to the point she wondered if the Alphans had been deceived. Perhaps the aliens they'd fought had been nothing more than worker bees or army ants, completely expendable to their superiors. Or ... it was just insane. The word kept echoing through her mind and yet ...
We know some of them are intelligent, she told herself. Are the rest of them just organic robots, or what?
"Right now, it doesn't matter," she said. She'd wanted to see the scene for herself and now she had. "We can't linger, not for more than a day or two. Do you have a meeting lined up with the local government?"
"Their ambassador," Nancy confirmed. "They insisted he'll be meeting us at Town Seven,"
Naomi grimaced. There'd once been several cities and hundreds of towns within the occupied zone, but the fighting had reduced most of them to rubble. They were lucky many of the locals had managed to get out, either before the enemy advance had swept over their homes or when the humans had come in to liberate them, yet an uncomfortably large number of locals had been caught in the storm and killed. The local government didn't seem inclined to blame the humans for the deaths, thankfully, but she still felt guilty. Perhaps she could have convinced the Pashtali to surrender, if she could have found the right words, or even to sit on the sidelines and wait for the larger war to be resolved one way or the other. She knew she'd done her best and yet, she'd wonder - for the rest of her life - if there'd been a way to avert it, to save innocent lives.
No, she told herself, as a pair of shuttles flew overhead. They were determined to do as much damage as possible, to us and their unwilling hosts, in their last few hours of life.
Nancy met her eyes. "My aircar is due shortly," she said. "I'll see you back on the ship?"
"Please," Naomi said. She took one final look at the nightmarish scene, promising herself she'd do everything in her power to make sure the Pashtali got the blame they so richly deserved, and then turned back to the shuttle. "Good luck."
Olson joined her as she stepped through the hatch. The younger man looked as green as the ambassador ... Naomi felt another twinge of guilt. She wasn't sure why she'd insisted on her assistant accompanying her. It wasn't as if she needed his presence. If he'd needed to tell her something, he could have done it - just as easily - over the communicator. And besides, if something happened to Naomi, her successor would need Olson to ensure he caught up with everything he had to know before the shit hit the fan. Again. Naomi was careful to ensure her senior officers knew as much as possible, but any sudden change in command would bring confusion in its wake.
"Admiral," he said. "Daffodil has returned, and reported she lost track of the alien ships."
Naomi nodded, curtly. She hadn't expected the scouts to be able to track the alien ships all the way to their reinforcements, although she'd allowed herself to hope they might. If she had a chance to bite off and destroy a chunk of the alien fleet, before it could be reinforced ... she shook her head, dismissing the thought. The engagement would have been chancy even if they'd had an opportunity to make it work.
"Hazel has yet to return," Olson added. "She might have better luck."
"We'll depart as planned, unless she brings us very good news," Naomi said. She took her seat and closed her eyes. The shuttle's atmosphere tasted of dead and rotting bodies. She felt as if she should pass through a biohazard screening when she returned to the ship. "We can't stay here."
She felt another twinge of guilt. Tarsus hadn't lifted a finger to assist her, not when she'd chased the enemy fleet away nor when she'd landed troops to take out the enemy positions on the ground. They'd done nothing to anger the Pashtali and yet, she had a nasty feeling the Pashtali would take their anger out on Tarsus anyway. It was sickening and yet very in character for a race of interstellar bullies. How dare someone fight back against their would-be enslavers? How dare someone come to liberate the slaves? She suspected the locals would be completely quiet, refusing to commit themselves, until the war ended with a clear winner.
They have a point, the cynical part of her mind noted. Their orbital defences are gone and their planetside fortifications are badly battered. They cannot use the crossroads as bottlenecks, ensuring they cannot keep the Pashtali out of their system ...
"I also have an updated report from the FTL network," Olson said, holding out a datapad. "Task Force Skinsuit is proceeding towards its target."
"And let's hope the enemy aren't ready for them," Naomi said. The Pashtali might have assumed no one could fly their starships. They knew, now, that that wasn't true. "If nothing else, we'll keep them off balance."
She took the datapad and sat down, feeling uncomfortably grimy. She hadn't felt so filthy in years. The shuttle hatch closed and the craft took off, clawing its way into orbit. Naomi scowled as she glanced through the brief statement, then turned to the updated reports from the fleet. The ships were as ready to depart as they'd ever be. And ...
Her heart clenched. She'd lost two hundred Marines on the surface, according to the final count. It was a tiny figure, compared to the hundreds of thousands of dead aliens, but it still hurt. Eighteen bodies had yet to be recovered, if indeed there was anything left of them ... she wondered, numbly, what the locals would do if they found the bodies after the fleet departed. Legally, they were supposed to return the body to the nearest human consulate; practically, they might be better off destroying the body and pretending they'd never seen it. Who knew how the Pashtali would respond if they returned in force? They had never struck her as being petty and spiteful before, yet what they'd done to Tarsus had been incredibly so.
We might still find the missing bodies, she told herself, although she knew it was unlikely. The post-battle assessment teams would have located the fallen, even if they hadn't had time to recover them. And then we can give them a proper burial.
She looked at her aide. "Inform the fleet we will be departing as planned," she said, firmly. The longer they stayed, the greater the chance of the Pashtali pinning the fleet down and tearing it to shreds. "There's no longer any point in staying here."
"Aye, Admiral."
***
Under other circumstances, Nancy Middleton thought she would have found Town Seven - or whatever the locals called it - surprisingly charming. It looked very much like an old-style human village, the kind of habitation that had only been preserved through human determination to retain something of their past, resting within a pool of shallow water. A deeper lake sat right next to the village, ripples within the water suggesting the wildlife was slowly returning after the fighting had come to an end. She thought, as the aircar dropped to the muddy ground, that humans who lived in similar environments would have built their homes on stilts, to keep them safely above the waterline. The locals didn't need to bother.
She composed herself, despite suddenly feeling a mad urge to giggle at the collection of humanoid frogs waiting for her. They looked like cartoon characters that had stepped into the real world ... she bit her lip, dismissing the thought before it could show on her face. Tarsus had been a self-spacefaring world before the invaders had arrived, which was more than could be said for Earth, and they might know enough about humans to read her expression. Besides, they probably found her appearance just as comical. She was tall, by their standards, and almost insanely thin. In their shoes, she might wonder how she could walk upright without tripping over her own feet.
"I greet you," she said, in careful GalStandard Four. It wasn't her favourite language - she understood it better than she spoke it, and she had to think to avoid mispronouncing the words - but the locals couldn't speak GalStandard One or Two. Their mouths just couldn't form the words. "I speak for my people."
