“Tell me.”
“Listen up,” Drakon said over the universal command circuit. “You’ve been told the plan. When I give the order to fire chaff, I want every round we’ve got dropped into the area in front of the enemy base. Ten seconds after the fire command, I’m going to order the assault, and at that point, everyone is to head all out for that base. Don’t pause, don’t delay, don’t hesitate. Your colonels and I will be leading the assault. Once we get inside the base, some of you will be designated to occupy the base defenses and turn them against enemy troops from outside our perimeter who will be pursuing us once they realize what we’re doing.”
He didn’t have to lay out the results of failure. The Syndicate, especially a Syndicate star system where the snakes had such a strong presence, would not offer any mercy to rebellious soldiers. Drakon’s troops knew that they had to succeed in the assault if they wanted to live.
Drakon didn’t think there was any chance of getting through to the warships that might or might not still be in orbit overhead, but it couldn’t hurt to try. “This is General Drakon. Request that you immediately start hitting the buildings across the street from our perimeter with any weapons you’ve got. I say again, begin bombarding the buildings across the street from our positions. Do as much damage as you can as long as you can.” Even if the bombardment with hell lances did not cause much damage, it might make the Syndicate ground forces believe that Drakon was about to launch a breakout attack.
He didn’t think the Syndicate would expect a break-in attack.
Only a couple of minutes remained. He knelt near a ragged opening where a window had once been, letting the recon probe on his armor stick out enough to view the enemy base. The defensive fire coming from the base wasn’t steady but frequent enough to make it clear that the defenders were not sitting passively. For the first time, Drakon wondered if those defenders knew about the trap. Were they aware of how many reinforcements were outside, pressing on Drakon’s troops? Or did they think they were still facing a desperate fight?
Well, they were facing a desperate fight. In a few minutes, the defenders of that base were going to find out what a lot of desperate soldiers could do on the attack.
“Stand by,” Drakon said.
“Good-bye, General,” Gaiene answered on a private circuit. “And thank you again. I could not die under any conditions but the best, and you have given me that.”
“Conner, what the hell—”
“I’ll say hello to Lara for you. Take care of my soldiers, General.”
And then it was time, with no room left to demand that Colonel Gaiene stop acting foredoomed. “Fire chaff!”
Scores of rounds arced into the area before the base, blossoming into fields of smoke, small strips of metal, heat decoys, noisemakers, and every other device known to humanity for blocking or confusing the sight and senses of any and all sensors and targeting devices.
“Go!” Drakon shouted. “Follow me!”
On the heels of the ancient exhortation, Drakon leaped to his feet, charging out the nearest gaping opening in the building and across the open area before the enemy base. On his display, he could see a mass of thousands of symbols doing the same, all suddenly in motion, all heading inward. Then he entered the chaff cloud, and all of the decoys and jammers and screens that blocked enemy sight and sensors also blocked his own. To either side and right behind, he could sense the movements of the soldiers closest to him, but his display could only show an estimate of what was happening, assuming the attack kept moving forward at the same rate.
It took a few seconds for the base to react to the sudden assault, then with a roar that filled the sky every defensive weapon opened up. Many of the defenders’ weapons fired blindly into the chaff-created murk, hoping for lucky shots. Others exploded into spheres of shrapnel that did not need guidance to find anything unfortunate enough to be too close and in their paths.
The attackers didn’t form a perfect square as they converged on the base, instead forming into four blunt angles whose points were centered on the enemy fortification. At the center of each point, leading the way, were Drakon and his three colonels.
Drakon didn’t feel anything as he charged except a sense of dislocation, as if he were somewhere else watching himself running full tilt toward the enemy’s fire. He saw the alerts on his display screaming of incoming fire that came close enough to be spotted through the chaff, he felt the force of nearby explosions and saw the track of shots passing very close by him, heard his breath rasping in and out, and it all felt unreal and a bit distant in time and space. How could it be real? Who in their right minds would be doing this?
As Drakon and the others leading the attack came through the final layers of chaff and out into the open near the base, a storm of defensive fire lashed at them. At the same time, their displays finally updated as the network between their battle armor automatically reestablished links. Markers sprang to life on the display, some of them almost immediately dimming to show soldiers who had been struck by the defenders’ fire.
An energy pulse hit Drakon on his lower abdomen, his armor’s outer surface ablating to absorb and dissipate the heat. A solid projectile clipped one of his shoulders, glancing off the armor and causing Drakon to stumble as he ran.
He saw one marker in particular flare to show a soldier had taken a solid hit, heard that soldier grunt with pain. Gaiene. He called up the window to show the view from Colonel Gaiene’s armor, saw that view tilted in a way that meant Gaiene was on one knee, wavering a bit, red damage markers flaring on his battle armor’s display. “Onward!” Gaiene yelled to his soldiers as they streamed past, his voice hoarse. “Take them, lads and ladies! Make me proud!”
The enemy sensors could spot comm nodes if they were close enough, and now they focused their fire on Gaiene, reducing the amount of shots aimed at the soldiers near him. The view from Gaiene’s suit rocked as another round hit him, more danger markers flashing as his helmet display flickered.
Gaiene gasped from the pain of his second injury, then started laughing, sweeping his rifle slowly from one side to the other, firing continuously at the enemy fortifications as his soldiers began reaching them. “That’s it! Onward! Onward!”
The view from Gaiene’s armor went blank.
Drakon, still running toward the enemy, saw that the symbol for Colonel Conner Gaiene on his display had gone out.
He was suddenly here again, completely here, charging for the point where an engineering team had placed a breaching charge, following the charge through the enemy defenses right on its heels so that the blast and his entry were almost one event. He saw defenders frantically turning toward him, defenders wearing Syndicate battle armor, and he knew Syndicate battle armor, he knew its every weakness and every flaw, and he killed six of the defenders without pausing or thinking, barely aware of anything except that lack of a symbol on his display where Conner Gaiene should have been.
But something clicked inside him as the surviving defenders at this spot raised their hands or huddled on the floor, their weapons cast aside. Drakon’s hands hurt from the pressure they were putting on his weapon, but he controlled them, he controlled himself. Because Conner Gaiene had not died so that Artur Drakon could massacre enemy soldiers who were trying to surrender, had not died so that Artur Drakon could forget his duties and his responsibilities to every other soldier in these two brigades.
He started directing the soldiers streaming into the breach behind him. Some to continue onward to roll up resistance inside the base. Others to take over the defenses and watch for the Syndicate soldiers who were surely pursuing them from the outside by now.