“Colonel Kai’s troops ran into someone with wasps on his side, too. We can’t divert forces from preps for the assault on the base, so have your scouts do their best to find out what they’re facing but do not let them stick their necks out.”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full.”
Drakon had barely ended that conversation when more alerts sounded, and his display lit with new threat symbols. “Warbirds!” someone called across the comm circuit.
“Engage when they reach effective range—” Colonel Kai began.
“Sir, they’re not heading for ground attack. They’re climbing to intercept the shuttles.”
Damn. Drakon glared at the symbols representing the enemy aerospace craft. His forces didn’t have any antiair weapons with enough range to hit the warbirds if they stayed high, and they were going for the most vulnerable part of his forces.
“Did that charming Kommodor leave anything in orbit to help deal with these fellows?” Gaiene asked Drakon.
Had she? That had been the plan, before the Syndicate flotilla had shown up. “I—” More symbols on his display. Particle-beam fire, coming down from above, spearing four of the warbirds climbing toward the shuttles. “Yes, she did.”
The remaining warbirds scattered, some attempting to continue toward the once-more-descending shuttles. But it was very hard for anything moving at atmospheric speeds to evade a weapon moving at the velocity of a warship’s hell lance. Four more warbirds were stricken by a second volley from high above, some spiraling off like lifeless, falling leaves and others exploding as the weapons they carried detonated.
Protected by the fire of the warships in near orbit as well as by a fresh barrage of chaff, the shuttles started down with the second wave of assault troops. They would land in the same areas as the first wave, on the streets just outside the current perimeter of Drakon’s forces.
And there were unknown forces lurking inside the buildings on the other sides of those streets.
“Screen the drop zones,” Drakon ordered. “Colonel Kai, Colonel Gaiene, pull half the first wave forces prepping for assault and send them to reinforce the units around the shuttle drop zones so the next wave can get down.”
“Are you noticing the curious lack of artillery and missile fire on our positions?” Gaiene asked.
“Yes.” They had assumed the landing areas and the occupied buildings would be getting hit by this far into the operation. “Haris doesn’t have that much long-range bombardment capability. Maybe he moved it out of range of this location and is having to get it back into place.”
“Or,” Gaiene said, “maybe they’re worried about rounds hitting whoever is in the buildings across the street?”
“The snoops my scouts planted are being taken out,” Kai reported. “Someone is neutralizing them before they can provide detections.”
Someone was a lot more capable than the single brigade of professional ground forces on this planet was supposed to be. “Each of you get a company set up in defensive positions across the street.”
“They’ll have to come from—” Kai began to object.
“I realize that,” Drakon said, studying his display. “I’ve got a bad feeling. If we don’t cover those landing zones and protect our rear, our assault could be defeated before it begins.”
“Do we abort further landings?” Kai asked.
“No! Anyone we left on the freighters would be sitting ducks. We need to get them all down here so we can move in on that Syndicate base. The sooner we take it down, the sooner we can move out from it to eliminate any remaining enemy ground forces.”
Shuttles once more began landing in the streets outside, their exhaust pushing abandoned ground vehicles around and stirring up clouds of dust. Soldiers raced out of them as the ramps dropped, fanning out and diving into the already-occupied buildings facing the enemy base.
Threat symbols appeared on Drakon’s display again, multiplying rapidly in the buildings across the street all around the perimeter. This time the contacts stayed solid, and red markers indicated combat under way.
“My forces across the street are coming under pressure,” Kai remarked laconically. “Estimated enemy strength of at least a company.”
“Here, too!” Gaiene announced. “We’re holding.”
Shuttles were leaping upward again to pick up the third and last wave of ground forces from the freighters. Drakon tried calling the warships in orbit but could not get through the jamming that Haris’s forces were employing. He switched to the circuit for the shuttle wing commander. “Major Barnes, what can you and your pilots see of the situation on the ground?”
Barnes, understandably, sounded distracted as she answered. “We’re not too focused on that, General. There’s still a lot of fire coming at us. Damn! Wait.” A pause, then Barnes came back on. “My bird took a hit. Nothing serious. General, I can’t make out details, but some of my pilots have spotted something unusual. Normally, we come in like this, and we see people fleeing the city. People in vehicles, on foot, whatever. Can’t see that here. Wait.” Another pause. “My bird is going to need some work when this is over, General. What we’re seeing is stuff coming in. Vehicles, groups of people on foot, but not crowds.”
“Not crowds?” Drakon pressed. “People on foot coming into the city. But spread out and not crowded together?”
“Yes, sir. Coming in from all sides near as I can tell. Looks like ground forces to me from the way they’re moving.”
“When you get high enough, ask whatever warships are up there to see if they can knock down bridges and interdict other routes into the city.”
“Yes, sir. Got it. I think you’ve got four HuKs still in close support. Before our last dive, I saw all of the cruisers heading off after Haris’s cruisers.”
Four HuKs wasn’t much, but it was a lot better than nothing.
Drakon pulled out the scale on his helmet display. The enemy base, and Drakon’s troops, were located a little way from the city center. Reinforcements coming in would not all arrive at once as those with more distance to travel took more time to get here.
Reinforcements. Was the enemy base nearly empty and being defended mostly by automated weapons?
Or did Haris have on the ground the same sort of surprise that the Syndicate battleship had provided in space?
Why hadn’t Morgan made contact yet? How could she have missed substantial additional ground forces?
“General, something is wrong—” Colonel Malin began. He was over on the opposite side of the perimeter from Drakon.
“I already know that. Listen up, all three of you,” Drakon said, linking in Kai and Gaiene as well. “The birds have spotted ground forces coming into the city and no citizens fleeing it. We need to know how well defended that base actually is.”
“They have been throwing out shots whenever they get a glimpse of our soldiers,” Kai said.
“I’ve seen that. But it’s apparent that we’re going to be facing a much more serious threat outside our perimeter than we anticipated. We may have to assault sooner and with fewer troops. Try probing the base’s defenses to see how much fire you draw.”
“I would caution against a premature attack,” Kai said. “We need enough troops on the ground to not only penetrate the base’s defenses but also hold their gains and expand them. We do not have those forces available yet.”
“I believe that Colonel Kai is right,” Malin said.
“Test the defenses,” Drakon repeated. “Let’s make sure that base is as strongly held as our plans assumed.” He was seriously second-guessing his own decision not to ask the warships to bombard part of the base’s defenses as well as annihilate the snake headquarters. Given the limited bombardment capability of the few Midway cruisers, it had seemed much better to ensure the total destruction of the snake complex and to capture the base intact, along with the weapons and supplies within it. But that decision could not be revisited now. If the Midway cruisers had followed the plan, they had expended all of their bombardment projectiles.