Geary looked into her eyes. Carabali understood the danger, too, but was accepting her on-scene commander’s judgment. As fleet commander, he could do no less. “Very well, Colonel. It’s on its way.”
He turned to Desjani. “How can we maximize the accuracy of a surface bombardment right now?”
Desjani spread her hands. “Through atmosphere and all the junk we’ve already tossed up? Get the bombarding ship in as low an orbit as you can manage. But that will expose the ship to fire from the planet.”
“Okay.” A quick scan of the display showed the right candidate. A battleship could deliver enough firepower and have the best chance of surviving counterfire from the ground. “Warspite, proceed to lowest orbit and execute following fire-support mission as soon as possible.”
“Warspite, aye. On our way.”
“Sir, we have detections of aircraft en route the POW camp. Aircraft assessed military profile, all using maximum stealth capabilities.”
“Engage them,” Geary ordered.
Hell lances lashed down from orbit, forming webs of high-energy particles around the Syndic aircraft. With so many Alliance warships in space above the planet and able to fire on targets, the aircraft didn’t have a chance. Hard to see though the aircraft were, even a glancing blow from a hell lance was enough to knock them out, and a lot of hell lances filled the atmosphere around the aircraft. “All aircraft assessed destroyed. Warspite opening fire.”
On the view from the lieutenant commanding the Third Company, walls began blowing inward, and the ground jumped in a continuous wild dance as Warspite hurled hell lances and small kinetic projectiles into her targets. The feed from the lieutenant hazed as the destruction continued, dust and charged particles filling the air around him, then cut off completely.
“We’ve lost comms with the Marine Third Company,” the communications watch responded. “There’s so much junk in the air from the bombardment and the hell-lance fire that we can’t get signals through. We’re trying to reestablish contact, but it’ll probably be a few minutes.”
Was there anyone left to reestablish contact with? Geary had just had time to formulate that thought when another watch-stander called out.
“Missile launches from Syndic orbital facility Alpha Sigma. Three missiles. Assessed orbital-nuclear-bombardment warheads. Initial tracks toward site of POW camp. Combat systems recommend vectoring light cruiser Octave and destroyers Shrapnel and Kris to destroy the missiles, and launching kinetic rounds from Vengeance to destroy the firing installation.”
“Approved. Execute the commands.” Geary looked toward Rione. “So they did have nukes in orbit.”
“These might not be all of them,” she answered.
“More aircraft inbound toward POW camp. Assessed military.”
“Engage them,” Geary ordered.
“Surface-based Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile launches detected. Trajectories targeted on POW camp. Combat systems recommend engage missiles immediately with hell-lance fire and that Relentless bombard the IRBM launch site.”
“Do it.”
“Marine Sixth Company reports encountering a booby-trapped area. Several casualties.” An alert sounded. “Warspite has taken a hit from a surface-based particle-beam battery. Warspite is undertaking evasive maneuvers and engaging the battery with bombardment munitions. Warspite reports fire-support mission complete.”
Still nothing from Third Company on their circuit.
“IRBMs and launch site destroyed. Octave has destroyed two of the nuclear bombardment missiles. Shrapnel has taken out the third. Warspite reports surface particle-beam battery destroyed. Estimated time to kinetic-round impacts on orbital launch site is three minutes.”
Carabali’s image appeared again. “Sir, we’ve spotted two ground convoys heading for the camp under cover of the dust thrown up by the bombardments so far.” Next to her, imagery of the convoys appeared. “Our recce drones operating under the dust identified uniforms and weapons in both convoys before we lost one of the drones to ground fire.”
“All right, Colonel. We’ll take care of those convoys.” Geary passed the data to the combat systems and watched a recommended engagement pattern pop up an instant later. He punched approve and saw another wave of kinetic rounds burst out of several Alliance warships, headed downward. “Good thing kinetic rounds are cheap and plentiful,” he remarked to Desjani. Was this what ancient gods would have felt like, hurling death and destruction from above onto the humans and their structures far below?
“Bombardment impacting Syndic orbital facility Alpha Sigma.”
Geary saw a flock of escape pods heading away from the doomed Syndic facility, then the Alliance rocks began hitting and blowing apart huge pieces of the Syndic orbital base. Within moments, it vanished, replaced by a cloud of junk.
“Comms reestablished with Marine Third Company.”
Geary tagged the window and saw a static-riddled vision of almost total destruction. The lieutenant sounded stunned as he reported in. “Enemy fire has ceased.”
Carabali’s order snapped back. “Withdraw immediately along line one zero five true. I’m sending forces to link up with you.”
“Colonel, our dead—”
“We’ll come back for them. Get you and your wounded out now!”
“Understood, Colonel. On our way.”
Our dead. Your wounded. Geary looked at the status readouts for the Third Company. It had landed with ninety-eight Marines. Sixty-one were still alive, and of those, forty showed various degrees of injury. The bombardments aimed at the two Syndic surface convoys reached their targets, and two sections of roadway and surrounding terrain rose toward the sky as everything within the strike zone blew apart under the tremendous impacts of the Alliance projectiles.
“Sir,” Carabali reported, “we have indications of enemy pursuit organizing behind Third Company’s withdrawal.”
“Thank you, Colonel. We’ll take care of it.” Geary passed the target area to Warspite. After viewing the Marines’ casualties, he wasn’t interested in humanitarian gestures toward the enemy trying to kill his people. “Turn this area into a dead zone, Warspite.”
“Warspite, aye. It’ll be a pleasure, sir.”
As Warspite hurled another bombardment toward the planet’s surface, Geary pulled back his view for a moment. The region around and at the borders of the POW camp had been turned into a seething hell of craters and dust. Other areas on the ground showed craters where kinetic rounds had taken out surface launch sites or batteries, and here and there clusters of damage marked where Alliance hell lances aimed at Syndic aircraft had gone on to strike anything on the surface in their line of fire. Parts of the city nearest the POW camp were burning, but so were substantial portions of other cities on the planet, and as Geary watched, a massive explosion obliterated a section of one of the biggest cities on the planet. “They did that to themselves?” he asked.
“On purpose or by accident,” Desjani confirmed.
“More aircraft inbound.”
“If they’re assessed military, then engage. Weapons free on all military aircraft heading toward that POW camp.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rione was gazing bleakly at the display. “You think they would’ve figured out how useless this all was. Everything they throw at us is just getting destroyed, usually with damage to other things on the surface.”