Guns of the Valpian (Survival Wars Book 6) Read online

  The Crimson had been loaded with several armoured vehicles prior to the voyage. It was tight and the spaces between these units were filled with humans and Ghasts. They talked loudly amongst themselves, though it was easy to see their usual high spirits were muted by their predicament. Most of the soldiers were in spacesuits and going through the routine of checking out the gauss rifles, to see which one suited them best. It was little more than superstition – the rifles were made with utter precision and Duggan doubted if there was any measurable weight difference between them. Still, he wasn’t going to criticise.

  A figure approached, wending through the others. It was Ortiz, sporting a deep bruise on one of her high cheekbones. Her dark eyes were as sharp and dangerous as ever.

  She was straight to business. “We’ve got three Gunthers and four light transports, sir. We’ve got a fail shut on all of the tanks. I’ve got Durham and Berg looking at the clamps.”

  “What about the transports?” asked Duggan. “Everything was red or amber when I looked from the bridge and there hasn’t been time to check out the faults.”

  “Two of the transports will definitely release – I don’t know about the others. Either way, we shouldn’t need to do much walking. I got the bridge data – two thousand klicks would be a long way to go on foot.”

  “What about artillery?” he asked, indicating the two short-barrelled plasma turrets against one of the walls. The artillery pieces were dark grey in colour, triangular at the front and squared off at the back. Their muzzles were thick tubes with only a limited amount of rotational ability. The rockets they fired were semi-autonomous, so the barrel itself only needed to be pointed in the general direction of its target.

  “We can attach those to the back of the transports, sir,” Ortiz replied.

  “Excellent - I don’t want to rely on rifles and grenades. There’ll be no air support this time.”

  “Shame.”

  The preparations took longer than expected, owing to numerous issues with the hardware release clamps. For a time, Duggan thought they were going to be reduced to using the transports only, so it was a bonus when Durham somehow managed to free up one of the Gunther mid-sized tanks. On this day of bad news, matters improved significantly when the second of the three tanks signalled its availability for launch at the very last minute.

  “What the hell?” asked Durham. “I’d like to take the credit, but I have no idea why it’s working now.”

  “Don’t question it,” said Duggan, his mood already much better. “Climb onboard and get it launched as soon as we’re ready.”

  The unexpected availability of the second tank necessitated some shifting of personnel, which added a further short delay. The rearrangement left eleven soldiers in each of the Gunthers, with two to drive each transport.

  Duggan sat in the cockpit of the first Gunther, his helmet on the floor between his feet. The cabin was cramped and already stiflingly hot. A dozen screens on the walls around him shone harshly and he turned the brightness of his own down until they glimmered only faintly. There were two others in the cockpit with him - Vaughan was driving and Kidd had got herself into the third seat at the weapons console. The place smelled of vulcanised rubber and the subdued chatter of the soldiers drifted in through the open door.

  “Tank Two, Transporters One and Two are good to go,” said Vaughan.

  “We’re in a hurry,” said Duggan. “Let’s not hang around.”

  The cargo bay entered a state of lockdown and the warning lights glowed a sullen red. The drivers of the other vehicles confirmed their state of readiness and Duggan gave the command to go, whilst keeping his fingers crossed there’d be no technical hitches.

  The holding clamps disengaged without issue and the launch chutes positioned beneath each vehicle opened smoothly and cleanly. Duggan felt a slight jolt as the tank was ejected through several dozen metres of armour plating and then onto the ground beneath the Crimson.

  “Tank Two and the transporters confirm successful launches, sir,” said Vaughan.

  “Initiate deployment of the artillery,” said Duggan.

  “Done. The plasma launchers are on their way.”

  Duggan focused one of the tank’s sensors onto the underside of the spaceship and watched as the two launchers dropped onto the ground, where they remained stationary on their gravity drives.

  “Transporters One and Two pick them up,” said Duggan.

  There was no requirement for a physical connection. The onboard computers on the transporters simply instructed the artillery pieces to follow at a distance of a few metres. The mobile guns slid into position behind the transporters. When he squinted at these vehicles, Duggan was reminded of children’s building blocks – two rounded cuboids towing drab triangles. However, there was nothing innocent about the plasma launchers – they could do enormous damage to buildings, armour or enemy ground troops if given the opportunity.

  “I’ve got our vector and we’re moving out,” said Vaughan.

  “Make best speed,” said Duggan. “We’re in the shit here and the longer this takes us, the greater the chance we won’t make it back.”

  “It doesn’t take an expert to see the Crimson isn’t going anywhere soon,” said Kidd.

  “Yeah.”

  As they moved off, Duggan saw the Crimson from a new angle. The extent of the damage nearly broke his heart and he realised he’d become more attached to the warship than any of the others he’d flown. He’d always done his best to keep emotionally detached – a spaceship was, after all, nothing more than a perfected weapon of mass destruction. In spite of it, there was something about the Crimson which had crept up on him and taken hold.

  “It looks nothing like it did on the Gargantua,” Vaughan remarked. “I can’t believe we got out of there alive.”

  “They built that one solid,” said Kidd. “I bet it could still fire half of its clusters.”

  “More than half,” said Duggan. “It’s a sitting duck without its engines and without its main core. If we don’t do something about it and soon, the enemy will find it and destroy it from orbit. After that, they’ll come for the rest of us.”

  “Are we hoping to snatch one of the enemy’s cores?” asked Vaughan, his eyebrows raised.

  “I’m told it isn’t feasible,” Duggan admitted. “We’re just trying to do something – anything – that might tip the scales in our favour.”

  “Those are the missions I like,” said Kidd, her expression making it hard to be sure whether or not she was joking.

  “We either die on the Crimson from an orbital missile strike, or we risk our lives trying to find a way back home, soldier.”

  “You’ll get no complaints from me, sir,” said Kidd. “I love this job and even if I die, you won’t be able to pull the rifle from my cold, stiff fingers.”

  Duggan smiled. “That’s why you’re here.”

  He turned his attention to the journey ahead. Chainer hadn’t exaggerated when he said how little information they possessed on the terrain. The Crimson had landed almost blind and with the AI core burned out, the backup mainframe lacked the capability to take a detailed snapshot of the surface.

  “It’s over two hundred degrees out there,” said Vaughan. “In about one hour when the sun’s gone, it’s going to be two hundred below zero. We’re holding at sixty klicks per hour over this flat ground. I reckon we’ve got another couple of hours at this speed and then we hit those mountains up ahead. That’ll slow us down, unless we get real lucky.”

  The mountains were part of the range which the Crimson smashed through when it landed. They stretched for several thousand kilometres around the planet, like the great, jagged spine of Nistrun. The scant data they had suggested the mountain range was anywhere between two hundred and six hundred kilometres in width. Duggan fervently wished this particular obstacle wasn’t in the way.

  “There’s a strong wind here on Nistrun,” Vaughan continued. “It’s blowing constantly and bringing a lot of grit
with it.”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem,” said Duggan. It wasn’t unknown for delicate equipment to suffer gradual degradation under such conditions, but there was nothing exposed on a Space Corps tank. The artillery and transports were similarly resistant to erosion and could likely remain exposed to these conditions for a dozen years without issue.

  “I was thinking about us, sir,” said Vaughan. “If we have to fight in this, it’s not going to be much fun.”

  “There might be no wind at all across the mountains.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Duggan checked in with the Crimson. He spoke briefly to McGlashan, who told him there was no change in the Crimson’s situation.

  “I wasn’t expecting an improvement,” he said. “It’s only been an hour since we left.”

  “And you’ve got what you expected, sir.”

  He ended the connection and closed his eyes. McGlashan was angry he’d decided to lead this mission. He was aware he could be headstrong and he’d long ago given up pretending he wasn’t stubborn. McGlashan knew him well enough realise this raid was something he had no choice to lead. He sighed, drawing covert glances from Vaughan and Kidd, though they were wise enough to hold off with their questions.

  The armoured convoy forged on, leaving a shimmering trail through the disturbed air. The ground was pitted and undulating, though with few obstacles that necessitated a change in direction. Vaughan piloted them expertly, keeping as close to the pre-programmed path as he could manage. Tank Two remained directly behind, with the transports bringing up the rear.

  Ahead, the mountains loomed, the highest summit in this part of the range reaching a shade over six thousand metres. The peaks were rounded and looked smooth. Duggan didn’t know if this was an illusion, or if a hundred million years of wind-borne dust had stripped them of their edges.

  “We’re going up now,” said Vaughan. “These are the foothills. Everything looks clear ahead – nothing we can’t glide straight over.”

  Soon, they were deep in the mountains. The elevation climbed steadily until they entered a long, curved valley, at which point it levelled out at three thousand metres. The tank hummed along at fifty kilometres per hour, its gravity engine easily up to the task of pushing the vehicle’s immense weight onwards.

  “Look at this!” said Vaughan.

  There was nothing in the man’s voice which spoke of danger, but his tone got Duggan’s interest.

  “What is it?”

  “Day is just about to become night,” said Vaughan, his eyes fixed on the forward sensor.

  Duggan peered across and saw the transition coming. A wall of darkness rushed over the top of a tall summit, several kilometres away. It advanced down the steep mountainside like a ragged line of a million charging warriors dressed in pure black armour. The darkness pushed the light back, inexorably sweeping it aside. In moments, the day was gone as if it had never existed. Duggan switched to one of the rear sensor arrays and stared quietly as night continued chasing the fleeing day.

  “I can’t remember how many of these crappy worlds I’ve been to, but it’s nice to know I can still be surprised by something,” said Kidd.

  The sight had been majestic and, on another occasion, Duggan would have felt uplifted. On this occasion, he felt nothing and his mind switched back to the difficulties he was sure lay ahead.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TIME FLOWED by with its usual inevitability. Duggan was relieved when they encountered no significant obstacles. Once or twice, they were required to cut directly over the summits of some of the higher mountains. The tanks couldn’t climb vertically, though they could ascend extremely steep gradients without difficulty. They were designed to handle rugged terrain and they more than proved their worth. Eventually, the armoured convey reached the far side of the mountain range after travelling at a reduced pace for a little more than six hours.

  “One hundred and ninety klicks from the far side to here,” said Vaughan. “I think we got lucky.”

  “We’ve lost contact with the Crimson at some point in the last few minutes,” said Duggan. The comms on neither the tank nor the spaceship could penetrate directly through the rock of the mountains, nor could they travel around the curvature of the planet.

  “Given how much reliance we have on comms, you’d think they’d have cracked the nut of how to get a signal through substances that are denser than cheese,” said Kidd.

  “Cheese?” asked Vaughan in puzzlement.

  “I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate, alright? Besides, I’m hungry.”

  “You’ll get nothing that tastes much like cheese from the tank replicator,” said Vaughan.

  Even those ground-based vehicles on which it was deemed necessary to have replicator technology installed weren’t provided with anything more than a basic model. The tank replicator produced a variety of different-coloured sludges, none of which performed an acceptable job of mimicking their intended product.

  “I’d like to say you get used to the food when you’ve done this job long enough,” said Kidd. “The truth is, it still tastes like crap.”

  “It’s too early in the trip to live off the suit drugs,” said Duggan. It wasn’t strictly true, but for some reason he’d always felt it was wrong to rely on the sustenance provided by his suit. Not everyone agreed with him and Duggan found it a struggle to keep his views to himself.

  “I suppose,” said Kidd.

  She rose to find the replicator, which was somewhere in the passenger compartment at the back. Soon, the sound of good-natured insults drifted into the cockpit as she joked on with the others.

  “Sixty kilometres per hour, sir,” said Vaughan. “That’s about as fast as this baby will go.”

  “The guidance system predicts another forty hours until we reach the target,” said Duggan.

  “That sounds right. You don’t look happy, sir.”

  “I’m not happy, soldier. I like being on the ground, but I also like knowing I’ll be able to get into the air at the end of it. At the moment, I lack that reassurance.”

  “I take everything as it comes,” Vaughan replied.

  “That’s the way to be,” Duggan said. “I never learned how.”

  Vaughan laughed. “My old dad used to say I was too laid back for my own good.” His smile faded and he took on a serious expression. “I had a look through the data we hold on the target, sir.”

  “What did it tell you?” asked Duggan. He was always happy to listen to the opinions of his squad.

  “I notice the purpose of the central building is shown as unknown.”

  “We didn’t get a good view of it when we came down. We don’t understand the purpose of many things the enemy builds.”

  “If it’s any help, I think it’s a monitoring station,” said Vaughan.

  “What makes you say that?” asked Duggan, becoming interested. “It doesn’t resemble one of ours.”

  “No, but it looks similar to an old observatory, sir. Like the ones we used to have centuries ago on Old Earth to look into space. They still keep a couple open for visitors.”

  “You could be right. What advantage can we take from the knowledge, if that’s what it turns out to be?”

  “I don’t know about advantages, sir. It does mean they’ll have definitely spotted us when we came down to land.”

  Duggan scratched his cheek in thought. He’d already become accustomed to the likelihood that the enemy was coming for them, so this new idea didn’t give him additional reason to worry. “They could have some good kit in there,” he mused. “We keep our own monitoring stations packed with the latest gear and it gets regularly updated.”

  “Yeah,” said Vaughan. “Anyway, I thought I’d let you know what I guessed we might be heading into. I don’t know how well-guarded it’s going to be if I’m right.”

  “Thanks,” Duggan replied, before lapsing into silence. He thought about Vaughan’s words for a time and became gradually more convince
d the soldier was on to something. Back on the Crimson, Chainer hadn’t identified it as a detection facility, though he’d clearly been uncertain. Whether it made any ultimate difference was another matter entirely.

  The next few hours passed without incident and Duggan was undecided if he preferred the boredom or if it would have been better with some excitement. On balance, he decided that tedium was the preferable experience. The thinly-padded chairs on the tank could be made to recline slightly – it wasn’t quite sufficient to ensure enough comfort to sleep soundly and Duggan occasionally wondered if this was a deliberate ploy, instigated for a reason he couldn’t fathom. Therefore, he slept fitfully when it was his turn to take a break and when he awoke, he was not in any way refreshed.

  Duggan stretched groggily after his nap. Vaughan and Kidd were at their stations, looking alert. The former kept his jaw clenched, which gave away the fact he was using one of the stimulants from his spacesuit to keep him going. Duggan tried his hardest not to judge and knew the failings were his. He was only a tool, sent here to do a job and it was incumbent upon him to do whatever was necessary to complete that job effectively. Whichever way he spun it, he couldn’t convince himself.

  At forty hours into the journey, the convoy came to an area which contained a series of deep, circular depressions in the ground, some over a kilometre across. They hadn’t shown up on the Crimson’s scan and Duggan tried to figure out exactly what had caused them. After a time, he concluded there had been a number of meteorite strikes on this part of the surface, which had been slowly smoothed away by the grit carried in the wind. The tank’s sensors weren’t meant for geological analysis, but Duggan was able to ascertain that there were thick veins of magnetite running through the crust, presumably exposed by the impacts. They skirted around the craters with the steep sides and went straight across the others.