Chapter 17: Expendable

“Got it,” Song said, his voice crackling over the helmet’s ad-hoc. “Transmitting Matriarchy encryption keys back to Fleetcom. Next time any of the crawlers send a transmission, we’ll know about it. I can also extrapolate their course from the log files in the comms buffer, that should give us an idea of where the others are.”

“Good work, Song,” Brenner replied. He was standing on the deck of the captured crawler, which they now knew to be named ‘Landslide’, peering out over the dunes as the sandstorm hammered against his visor. He lifted a prosthetic hand, feeling the airborne particles whip at his housing as though it were skin. It would probably have stung like a motherfucker if he still had his Mk Is, but his synthetic nerves were not programmed to transmit pain.

Brenner brought up a window on his display, a satellite view of the area that the aliens called ‘the Dune Sea’, captured prior to the storm. His HUD let him know that he was receiving a download from Song, and with a few taps at the touch panel that was embedded in his forearm, he overlaid a graphic of the recorded transmissions over the map. There were points where transmissions had been sent to other crawlers, linked by a line to plot their courses.

“There’s one directly North of us,” Brenner said, “that’s the closest. If they were sending a convoy to secure the crawler, then that’s where it would be coming from. They’re pressed for time, they know that the UNN will be rolling through here soon. Do we have control over all systems yet?”

“All of the crawler’s weapons are under our control,” Song replied.

“Good, point them in that direction. Can those naval guns depress far enough to hit targets on the ground at about seventy meters? That’s about the limit of our visibility.”

“I think so,” Song replied. “One more thing, command diverted three mechanized companies from the Araxie territory. Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot. With a small course correction, they’ll end up right where the carrier to our North should be.”

“Let command know,” Brenner replied. “The Kodiaks will tear that thing apart.”

“Roger that.”

Hoff approached from Brenner’s left, joining him on the hull, his rifle clasped in his arms. There was a moment of silence as he admired the massive railguns, their original Navy grey painted over with crude desert camouflage.

“We’re airtight,” he finally said. Even standing a foot apart, they had to use the local network, as the storm was loud enough to drown them out. “The Rask aren’t getting inside the hull, even if they find a way to reach the gantry.”

“Good,” Brenner muttered. “We think we know what direction they’ll be coming from, we have the element of surprise, and we’re firing from elevation. I don’t see how this can go badly for us.”

“Fish in a barrel,” Hoff chuckled.

“I’ve got Song on the crawler’s guns, they’re all slaved to one targeting system. We have two Cupcakes and three guns on this side, the cats won’t know what hit them. I want everyone else up on the deck, we need to wipe the enemy out before they get to cover beneath the crawler. I don’t want to have to go down and get them.”

“I’ll see that it’s done,” Hoff replied. “Can’t we use that launcher?” he asked, gesturing to the ballistic missile platform that was welded to the front of the deck. It had four massive tubes that were covered in camouflaged netting. It looked like it had been taken from the bed of a truck and welded to the crawler’s hull.

“It’s pointing in the wrong direction,” Brenner explained. “But yeah, that would have been fun...”

“We’ll get ready,” Hoff said, starting to walk back to the conning tower, the tall structure shrouded in the sepia haze. “Any idea on the ETA?”

“Nope,” Brenner replied. “Now, we wait.”

The Timberwolf bounced on its suspension as it crested a dune, its occupants jostling in their bucket seats. They were hot on the trail of another crawler, Ben keeping a close eye on the seismic sensor.

“Maintain current heading and speed,” he said, Mizi replying with an affirmative chirp.

“Watch for more tracks,” Lozka added, her eyes fixed on the feed from her turret cam. “Even if the Rask have discovered that they are being hunted, they will have no way to conceal them.”

“Got a priority one coming through,” Ben said, his companions turning their heads to glance at him. “Fucking storm interrupted the download, hang on, trying to receive again. There we go.”

His eyes widened as they scanned the readout on his monitor, Lozka watching him curiously.

“What is it?” she asked. “You look surprised.”

“They’ve somehow managed to get their hands on the unencrypted logs for the Rask comms!”

“What does that mean?” Lozka asked, glancing between her two excited crewmates.

“The crawlers have been reporting their locations to one another,” Ben explained. “Every time one talked to another, a log file was created. Someone got their hands on those log files, which means that we can see everywhere that the crawlers have been, and extrapolate where they’re going to be.” He overlaid the information over their satellite map, swiping it to his companions’ monitors. “Combine this data with our seismic tracking technique, and the Rask are screwed. They can’t hide from us anymore.”

“We’re right on track,” Mizi chuckled. “We can’t be more than a day behind this one.”

“It’s over,” Ben added, relaxing back into his seat. “They can’t outrun us, they can’t out-fight us, and they can’t hide. If it wasn’t for the storm and the MASTs, we could destroy all of the remaining carriers with a single orbital bombardment.”

“Did we get any new orders?” Mizi asked.

“No,” he replied. “We stay the course, confirm the location of our target, then shadow it until the artillery company comes into range.”

“What do you think the Rask will do, Lozka?” Mizi asked. “You know them best. Will they surrender? Keep fighting?”

“They are stubborn,” she replied. “They will view anything less than victory or death as a failure. I believe that their leaders will compel them to fight to the last.”

“That’s insane,” Ben said, frowning at her. “Are you sure about that?”

“I have never known the Rask to surrender,” she continued, her emerald eyes meeting his own. “We should prepare for more bloodshed.”

“The convoy is hailing us,” Song warned. “They’re requesting a status update on our repairs.”

Brenner was up on the windswept deck of the crawler, lying prone between two of the towering naval guns along with the majority of his team, their weapons aimed at the dunes below. He adjusted the scope on his XMR, switching view modes in an attempt to improve the visibility. It was so strange to be fifty meters off the ground, but only to be able to see about that far in any direction.

“Tell them to report their coordinates,” Brenner replied, holding a finger to the touchpad on the side of his helmet. “Tell them our radio is down, and use text only, unless you learned to speak Rask without telling me.”

“Text it is,” Song said.

“If they’re dumb enough to actually do it, I want a firing solution on their position. Hit them with the guns.”

“Got them,” Song chuckled, “brace for a salvo. I don’t imagine the Rask put much thought into shock dampening.”

He watched as the naval guns to either side of him began to turn, the long barrels that extended from their angular housings pointing in the direction of the incoming Rask convoy. They elevated slightly, the motion far smoother and more fluid than befitted the makeshift nature of the crawler. These things were usually mounted to frigates, there was no way to get this close to one under normal circumstances without going EVA.

“Poor bastards have no idea what’s about to hit ‘em,” Stevens muttered.

The deck beneath them shook as the guns fired their first salvo, the magnetic rails in the barrels accelerating sixteen-kilogram slugs at multiple times the speed of sound. They rocked in their housings, threatening to tear themselves from the crawler’s hull, the loud cracks of the projectiles shattering the sound barrier drowning out the howling of the storm. It sounded like thunder, so loud that it made his teeth chatter, only the dampening software on his helmet preserving his hearing. The first salvo was followed up by a second, then a third, the impact threatening to shake the crawler apart.

In the distance, Brenner picked up bright flourishes of flame, the shells hammering the convoy. He could just make out the silhouettes of vehicles being flung into the air like toys.

“How do you think they like a taste of their own medicine?” Hoff muttered.

“Lieutenant,” Song began, “they’re sending some very frantic messages asking why they’re being fired on.”

“Hit them again,” Brenner replied. There was another series of cracks as the naval guns fired, another trio of salvos creating bright explosions that shone through the obscuring haze of airborne sand. Relative silence followed, the team watching through their scopes and visors.

“Not getting any more hails,” Song said, his voice crackling as the storm interfered with the signal. “Either they’re all dead, or they’ve figured out that they’re no longer on control of the crawler. Should I keep hitting them? It’s not like we need to conserve our ammunition.”

“Let’s wait,” Brenner replied. “It doesn’t matter if they retreat, they’ll be running straight into Delta and Echo.”

After a few minutes of silence, something appeared in the distance, dark shadows coming into view through the swirling sand. They seemed to materialize as if from nowhere, half a dozen vehicles racing down one of the low dunes. They were all technicals, converted civilian vehicles with guns and supplemental armor mounted to their chassis, a solitary APC trailing behind them. There was no way to know how big the convoy had been before it had taken a pounding, but the survivors were certainly in a hurry.

“Open fire,” Brenner ordered, his rifle kicking against his shoulder as he sent hot tungsten downrange. There was no need to shout over the radio, his tone was cold, detached. His team opened up, the sound of gunfire filling the air as eleven weapons discharged. The sand around the incoming vehicles erupted, the stray rounds creating splashes, like raindrops hitting the surface of a puddle. The sheets of metal than the Rask had crudely welded to their transports provided no protection from railguns, the lead vehicle turning to Swiss cheese as the operators concentrated their fire on it. It seemed to disintegrate as it rolled down the incline, the other vehicles swerving to avoid it.

The two CIWS guns soon joined in, the lenses in their muffin-shaped radomes zoning in on the targets, their multi-barreled cannons swiveling to track them. They would usually only fire on airborne targets like aircraft and missiles, but Song was controlling them manually.

They spewed tracer rounds in an almost unbroken stream, painting glowing lines through the air, the twenty-millimeter projectiles cutting swathes through the Rask vehicles. The APC was practically severed in half as one of the cannons swept across it, another technical erupting in a brief flash of blue flame as its hydrogen tanks ruptured.

The vehicles were taking evasive action now, but it was too late. They were in the middle of the kill zone, there was no cover in the open desert, no way for them to escape. Railgun slugs punched molten holes in their chassis, the CIWS guns tearing them to pieces with a fire rate that made them sound more like buzzsaws than guns. In what couldn’t have been more than a minute, the convoy was no more. Brenner ordered his men to cease fire. He looked out over the wreckage, scanning for any signs of life, but there were none.

“I think that was all of them,” he said, rising to his feet. “Song, let the boys in blue know that we’ll be waiting for pickup.”

“What do you mean ‘vanished’?” Korbaz snapped, the hologram flickering as she slammed her fist on the edge of the table. The Crewmaster recoiled, steeling himself before uttering his reply.

“The convoy that was sent to reinforce the Landslide never reported in,” he explained, gesturing to the floating icons on the map. “They fell out of radio contact shortly before reaching its last reported position, and we’ve heard from neither the convoy nor the Landslide since.”

“How could the humans have reached the Landslide before we did?” Korbaz hissed, her eyes scanning the hologram frantically as though the answer might be hidden therein. “They’re still a day’s drive East of it!”

“There’s more,” the Crewmaster added reluctantly, Korbaz shifting her attention back to him. “Not long after the convoy vanished, we received a distress call from their carrier, the Hurricane. They reported that they were being engaged by an enemy armored formation that had moved in from the North.”

“From the North?” Korbaz repeated, failing to mask the confusion in her voice. “But ... our scouts would have ... how could the enemy have circled around to the North without us knowing about it? We would have seen them!”

“The Araxie territory is in that direction,” the Crewmaster replied. “Perhaps the aliens landed more vehicles there without our knowledge? In any case, the Hurricane is surely lost, and we now have a second formation to worry about.”

“That’s half of our crawlers gone, and sixty percent of our fighting force,” Korbaz hissed. “We no longer have the firepower or the numbers to launch a second assault on the main formation.”

“So ... what do we do now?” the Crewmaster asked hesitantly, a few of the bridge crew turning to glance at the Admiral with worried expressions on their faces. Korbaz thought for a moment before replying, running through the options in her head. This was bad, they had been out-maneuvered, out-gunned. She felt as though she had swallowed a lead weight.

“We must ... accept the dishonor of failure,” she replied with a grimace. Even the suggestion would certainly shake the Matriarchy’s faith in her, maybe even open her up to challenges from the other Crewmasters, but there was no avoiding it now. “The plan will not work,” she added, “not after losing so many of our assets. Recall the reinforcements who were headed for the Hurricane, send them ... I don’t know where. Figure it out. We only have one operational carrier now.”

“As ... you wish,” the Crewmaster replied.

She rose from her place at the table, trying to swallow the lump in her throat, all eyes in the room watching her intently. She straightened her purple sash, collecting herself.

“Our only option now is to develop a viable strategy using only three crawlers,” she added. “I must contact the Matriarch, the responsibility is mine.”

The Crewmaster bowed his head, then barked an order, the bridge crew clearing out of the room to give her some privacy. After a few moments, the only one who remained was the operator who was sitting at the crawler’s comms station.

Korbaz paced for a minute, trying to muster what courage she had left. She and the Matriarch had parted ways on favorable terms, in good spirits, the Matriarch having placed all of her faith in Korbaz’s ability to command the fleet. How could she tell her that the plan was coming apart at the seams, that she was losing the war? Even with the fleet at full strength, victory would have been hard-won, but now...

“M-my Admiral?” the comms operator asked. She shot him a glare that made him shrivel up like a piece of fruit in the sun, his hands hovering over his console.

“Put the call through,” she said, straightening her back as though the appearance of confidence might somehow instill the real thing in her.