13. Then the artillery began to fall
Nathan had been doing pretty well until the artillery started dropping. Hobbled as he was, he had established a fortified firing position using rubble from nearby buildings and destroyed vehicles. The militia had quickly learned that they were seriously outmatched and had stopped approaching within the range of his shock lances – "Fucking shock-tits!" he would grumble whenever he fired them. The militia, too, had established their fortifications, hiding behind mobile barricades. The barricades would not have stopped lethal weapons, but were sufficient for the nerf-guns that Nathan was slinging. And for which Nathan was running low on ammo, although hopefully they didn’t know that.
Tony was bouncing around here and there, providing support. In fact, Tony was doing most of the hard work. He was the one disabling the weapons which could actually pose a threat to Nathan’s exoskeleton as they came within range. The intel provided by the commandos was invaluable in his target selection and prioritization, although Athena was handling most of that.
Every now and then, Nathan would see his friend flicker into existence behind a vehicle or crew-served weapon as his optical caumoflage disengaged, disable or destroy the threat, then dart away into an alley or up a building.
Nathan’s estimation of the Jurassian’s ground forces fell considerably as the fight drew on. They were brave but disorganized. They were armed, but poorly armored, and their weapons were insufficient to the threat. Retreating and regrouping should have been their priority rather than swarming an entrenched enemy with superior firepower and armor.
He had known that the Jurassians were not a peer-level threat. That much had been obvious from the data of the Elizabeth, and all of the intel gathered within the conflict zone since then had only confirmed it. Against a peer level threat, Nathan would have been dead long ago.
There was a reason the premiere armored exoskeleton of the Earth Space Force was widely known as the "Jarhead Coffin." It had a significant vulnerability that could not be overcome. The pilot. Methods and weapons of countering armored suits like Steve were not common, but only because making them or openly possessing them in large numbers was bad optics. But a burst of cosmic radiation, certain resonance frequencies, electronic warfare to fry his brainjack … there were methods, and Nathan had had many of them described to him in detail. The ESF exoskeleton was considered the best because it was the most versatile, and because its pilot survivability was the highest compared to the alternatives.
But the Jurassians seemed to be focused on overcoming him with brute force. He wasn’t even trying to hide from their projectiles. Steve would need a new paint job at some point because the lettering and decals were scratched, but the actual armor was undamaged. Occasionally one of the field projectors would kick in when one of the mobile weapon platforms or crew served weapons came into range, but mostly Steve was just taking everything on the chin.
Then the artillery started to fall.
It wasn’t that the artillery was any more of a danger to Nathan than the other weapons. In fact, the explosives were less dangerous to him than some of the vehicles which Tony had been prioritizing.
The problem was the collateral. The artillery was dropping in right next to him with high accuracy, but the blast waves were destroying the fortifications that Tony and the Horthians had set up. And they were launching waves of shrapnel everywhere.
"Priority message to command; the Horthians are firing artillery upon their own militia. I repeat, the Horthians are using lethal explosive weaponry while their soldiers are within the target area. These people are unarmored and the shrapnel is going to rip them apart. Please advise," he said urgently.
There was a four second pause. Nathan could hear another wave of artillery fire incoming. Fortunately, the Horthian militia was attempting to establish a new ‘safe’ distance … but the shrapnel …
"Get out of here, kid," the old man’s voice relayed. "Consider your first live fire mission a success. You drew them off the rest of us for a good twenty minutes, and probably saved a lot of lives in the process, but your armor is mission killed. Athena, initiate PMT transfer of Nathan and his exoskeleton using maximum safety protocols for units under live enemy fire, override any previous safety settings. Initiate transfer as soon as possible."
Nathan did not have a chance to respond. One moment he was under fire, then, without even blinking his eyes, he was aboard the Theseus, in the armory, in the room dedicated to Steve.
"Good luck, everyone. Give them hell. Nathan Sawyer out," he said, then he shut his eyes and finally, for the first time in more than an hour, managed to relax.
As much as anyone could relax in a coffin after nearly a half-hour of being shot at by sentient beings intending to kill their target, at least.
Once he had rested a moment, he hobbled over to Steve’s primary berth, where he allowed the automation to take over. A clamp quickly appeared to compensate for the suit’s missing foot, and in a moment, he was ready to dismount.
"ESF exoskeleton unit designation: Steve, initiate verbal command protocols. Open pilot bay, prepare for pilot exit. Disconnect pilot brain interface using established shutdown procedures. There is no urgency, take your time in getting out of my head. Exit combat operations status and prepare to enter diagnostics mode. Signal when brain interface shutdown is successful."
The interlocks keeping him inside – and safe – inside of Steve disconnected with various audible indications. Pneumatic hisses, clicks, monotones of various frequency. It took several minutes; dismounting an exoskeleton always took longer than getting into it. Even once the ‘door’ was open, he had to wait another five minutes for the interface to shut down.
"Pilot-brain to exoskeleton interface termination session ended successfully. It was a pleasure working with you, Nathan Sawyer," A voice came from an external speaker.
"You too, Steve. Sorry about your foot. I will figure out what the hell happened there, I promise you that."
"I remind you that I am incapable of an emotional opinion on the subject. However, the limitation to my combat ability by the phase matter transmission malfunction was a significant detriment in our attempts to fulfill our mission objectives," the suit agreed.
"Yeah, well, I’ll get you fixed up soon, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure that’s not the last time we’ll be walking on that planet together."
"Is there anything else you need before I enter diagnostic mode, Nathan Sawyer?"
"No, Steve, just upload all combat and tactical data to Athena. She’ll know what to do with it. End session."
Pulling the wires out of his brainjack, Nathan pulled himself out of the exoskeleton. Compared to the disastrous disconnect when the old man had shut him down without warning, all he felt was a slight shock running through his nerves, no worse than touching a doorknob in a room with carpet on a dry day.
Civilians could have wireless brain interfaces. They were expensive for humans, but not unheard of. On some colonies, they were considered a civil right of any sapient species that required advanced technology to make themselves understood. They were also simply not secure enough for any military organization in existence. Part of the disorientation caused by disconnecting his brain from a brain-computer interface came from all of the firewalls and security programs involved in keeping his thinky organ from running down his nose. The physical connection, his surgically implanted brainjack, was just one of many security measures meant to keep both command staff and rank and file from being killed off en masse by a script kiddie.
After pulling out his brainjack, there were several other tubes to disconnect …
Once he was standing outside his exoskeleton, he surveyed the damage. "Goddamn. They were trying to kill me the best they could, and except for the fucked foot, Steve just needs a touch-up with a paintbrush."
He shook his head in disbelief. Knowing now what he did about the Aurealian-Jurassian relationship, or at least Yosca’s not-for-release-to-the-public need-to-know-only top-secret version of events, he was amazed that the Aurealians could be losing as badly as they were. The assumption when the Elizabeth’s meager population of ESF soldier’s and their deputized colonists had fought off wave after wave of Deathsworn boarding parties had been that the Deathsworn were attempting to take the Elizabeth intact. If that had been the case, then the Deathsworn may have limited the lethality and effectiveness of their weaponry.
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And perhaps they had. Perhaps the weapons that the Horthian militia had brought to bare were all just army surplus intended for civilian use, and the Deathsworn military had weapons generations beyond what he had just witnessed. If not, then he couldn’t account for how the Aurealians were losing territory, or why boarding was such an effective method for disabling or destroying their ships. The Deathsworn didn’t use weapons of mass destruction on Aurealian planets. They simply destroyed the spaceports and significant defenses, and then landed to establish their own bases. They took the planet – and the population – in tact.
Except the population did not remain in tact for very long.
Ironically, more of the Aurealians died to their own actions on such planets than the Deathsworn. The Aurealians that did not die in defense of their planet would soon gather together and commit mass suicide. Nathan had known this before, it was part of the ‘unofficial official’ version of the war. He had previously been outraged that the Aurealians had included their children in these events, but no longer.
Now, the Aurealian suicide gatherings made sense. Perfect, cold, logical, practical. Humane. It wasn’t that the Deathsworn would kill the Aurealian children; it was that they wouldn’t kill the Aurealian children. Not until they’d established a breeding population.
That was what made worlds like Horthus Prime so terrible. As long as its facilities remained intact, the Aurealians couldn’t go extinct, even if they wanted to.
That was why the Aurealian Swarm was coming to the Horthus system right now. To destroy it while they had the opportunity.
Something that the old man told him kept repeating in his head. He had said "by any means necessary," and the old man had answered "Be very careful with those words."
How far would the Aurealians go to destroy the cloning facilities they had either been forced to abandon, or perhaps forgotten about during evacuation? How many lives were they willing to take in order to save lives yet unborn?
And the innocent Jurassians? The ones who had never even seen an Aurealian? The ones who would be too afraid of being murdered by the Named Ones if they did anything but report the encounter if they actually came across one? There were billions of that sort of Nameless on Horthus Prime, and presumably on all worlds with cloning facilities. How would the Aurealians weigh the right to life of their enemies civilian class against saving billions of their unborn children from a terrible, inescapable fate? How far would he go, if the Jurassians were hunting human children for sport?
"Athena, send low priority private noncombat chat request to Katherine Daugherty," he instructed.
A slight tone acknowledged the request, and a moment later Katherine’s image appeared in the armory, projected from an unseen holoemitter. She was wearing her UEOSC uniform.
"Good work out there, Nathan. Really. It wasn’t what we had planned, but splitting up the heavies with you drawing the bulk of the fire worked out for the best," she assured him. "They kept charging your position and completely ignoring Jon and Lucy. They are still looking for you after you disappeared, which means that you are still keeping the pressure off of Jon and helping fulfill the mission objectives."
"Am I keeping you from your duties? I don’t have anything to say that can’t wait for after-action debriefing," he asked/informed her.
"I’m a civilian advisor only when it comes to military actions, Nathan. In that role, anything you have to say right now is worth my attention. Just don’t be surprised if my ghost suddenly disappears."
"How is it going? Is it over?"
"No. Jon is in the palace, Lucy and Tony are preventing the militia from swarming it with reinforcements. The commandos and drones have destroyed most of the threats to the militia, or are in the process of doing so. We’ve located a facility a few hundred miles away with surface-to-surface missiles, but the drones have been intercepting them with one hundred percent efficiency. We’re not certain how big the boom will be if we don’t, so we’re taking them seriously. They have shown a willingness to accept loss due to friendly fire, and our primary objective remains to prevent the loss of life."
"Willing to die to kill us, with a near one hundred percent militia recruitment rate. I’m pretty certain towards the end I was even seeing kids running around with their version of rifles. If they weren’t stuck in the twenty-fourth century, we’d be in real trouble," he commented.
"Yes, it’s a little frightening. Fortunately, while they make excellent soldiers, they seem to be poor scientists and engineers. We’ve been analyzing the shipyard and factories in orbit. They’re of various ages, but the new ones are all the same as the oldest ones we’ve documented in system. The hypothesis of them stealing Aurealian tech is growing stronger with every data point."
"So the Aurealians are fighting cargo cultists, and they’re losing?" Nathan asked.
"That’s a crude way of putting it. I believe the problem is that the Aurealians never developed weaponry before the Jurassians began preying on them. There are so many things we don’t know about them. They have been diplomatically reserved so far, and although their computer systems are vulnerable to the point of hilarity, we don’t know much of their pre-conflict history. Unlike the Jurassians, we don’t even know where they come from."
Nathan suddenly went pale. "Here’s a scary thought. What if they’ve been holding back? What if they’re not actually worried about going extinct because they know that they’ve got huge populations on worlds in some other part of the galaxy, and so they’re limiting their own weapons and tech to what the Jurassians have already gotten from them? If that’s the case, the Aurealians could actually be peer-level to the UEOSC."
"If they were peer-level, they would evacuate their worlds before surrendering them. If they were peer level, they would not need a massive armada to destroy a few handfuls of facilities on a number of planets, even as guarded as one like Horthus Prime is," Katherine pointed out. "Although the possibility of them holding back exists. If our primary hypothesis is true, then they likely possessed advanced xenoforming and cloning technology in the past. It’s hard to say what else they might not have shown us."
"I’m not certain if that’s reassuring or not," Nathan confessed. "Has there been any change on the ground?"
"Not since you asked last. Lucy has more or less barricaded herself while Tony and the commandos are harassing and haranguing the militia. Most of the vehicles are either destroyed or disabled. Another sight has begun firing missiles at the city, but we’ve been intercepting those too."
"I’m going to go take a shower, then I’m going to start working on fixing Steve. And then I’m going to figure out what the hell went wrong with the PMT protocols, and that is something I’ll need your help with."
Katherine was quiet for a moment. "Nathan, that sort of thing would be more Simon’s purview."
"I know. That’s why I’ll need your help. I’ll talk to you later. Athena, end connection."
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