at the very least, it would force us into major redeployments until we could deal with it. That was probably worth risking the loss of their entire force all by itself, and that doesn’t even count taking out Chartres’ population and industrial base.
But at least the system’s defenders had been given enough warning to execute their evacuation plans. Maneka had no way of knowing—and didn’t want to know—how many citizens of those butchered cities had failed to get out in time, but the glowing green icons of scores of huge refugee centers, all of them with at least rudimentary previously prepared defenses, burned in Benjy’s strategic plot. In addition to the fixed defenses, most of them were ringed by the additional icons of planetary militia and the remnants of the detachments of Regulars deployed to the planet. And those defenses appeared to be holding against the aerial bombardment raining down upon them, now that the fleet units which had been providing the Melconian attackers with fire support from orbit had been dispersed. But there was no way any of them could have hoped to hold more than briefly against the terrifying concentration of ground-based firepower the Melconians had managed to land on the planetary surface before the Concordiat relief force arrived.
It was silent on Benjy’s command deck, despite the hypervelocity hurricane howling about the assault pod’s hull as it blazed deeper and deeper into the atmospheric envelope, and Maneka felt her heart sink as she studied the available data.
The planetary reconnaissance system had been largely destroyed, but a few of its satellites still survived, and now that the Thirty-Ninth Battalion had arrived, they had someone to report to once more. It was an advantage of which she knew Colonel Tchaikovsky meant to take full advantage, but very little of what they had reported so far was good.
The Melconian planetary assault had been led by five of their heavy assault brigades, each composed of two armored regiments of thirty mechs each—twelve Heimdall—class light reconnaissance mechs and six of their “fists,” with a total of six Surturs and twelve Fenrises—plus one infantry regiment and an air cavalry regiment, supported by an artillery battalion. That was bad enough, but the initial assault wave had been followed up by two full infantry divisions and at least twelve strategic bombardment regiments, with their long-range missile batteries, and a matching number of space-defense missile sites. They had also deployed at least four additional antiarmor regiments of Loki tank destroyers—each of them basically little more than a single 60-centimeter Hellbore mounted on an unarmored ground—effect or counter—grav lift platform. They were fast and packed a punch which could be dangerous, especially if they could get into a flanking position, but they were relatively easy to kill once they revealed their positions.
That, unfortunately, wasn’t something the Battalion could count on them doing. The Melconian advantage in stealth technology applied to their ground systems, as well as their space-going platforms. Human sensors were better than their Melconian equivalent, which tended to level the playing field somewhat, but Melconian platforms like the Lokis could be extremely difficult for even a Bolo to spot, especially if they’d had a few hours in which to perfect their camouflage.
Still, it appeared from the reconnaissance satellites that the Puppies had opted for more of a brute force approach than sneakiness. Either that, or their campaign plan had accepted from the beginning that a Concordiat relief force was likely to arrive before they could set about the business of properly exterminating the planetary population.
Whatever their reasoning, they had avoided dispersing their forces in smaller concentrations the Thirty- Ninth could have chopped up in detail. Instead, the vast majority of their ground units were concentrated in a single, roughly semicircular defensive perimeter near the southern end of Lorraine, the planet’s single heavily populated continent. The ends of their perimeter’s arc of fortified positions were firmly anchored on the ocean, which provided at least some protection to their backs, and while concentrating their forces that tightly might make them a tempting target, it also allowed them to concentrate all of their defensive firepower. What they had assembled there would have been sufficient to make a battlecruiser squadron think twice about closing in to engage them from space, and it was obvious that despite the relatively short time they’d been in possession of the planet, they’d dug their ground combat elements in deeply.
Maneka’s command couch jolted her suddenly, as the assault pod hit the surface of Chartres.
At least we got down unopposed, she told herself, and felt more quivers as Benjy released the docking latches, threw power to his drivetrain, and ground free of the pod. The Bolo was monitoring Captain Belostenec’s communications channels, and she heard the Marines’ clipped, tersely professional combat chatter as their own vehicles whined out of the pod’s vehicle bays.
Benjy’s starboard infinite repeaters fired suddenly, knocking down an air-breathing Melconian recon drone as it popped up over a nearby line of hills. The drone disintegrated into a flaming, fragment-raining ball before it could possibly have gotten off a contact report, and Benjy’s secondary turrets swung smoothly, rotating back and forth as he waited for additional targets.
Captain Harris and Allen had brought their pod in less than two kilometers to the west of Benjy’s current position, and the remainder of Tannenberg’s assault load was rapidly assembling around them. Tannenberg herself, and all seven of the other transports, had never even approached atmosphere, and they were already streaking directly away from the planet and the ferocious battle raging between Commodore Selkirk’s outnumbered task force and the remaining Melconian warships in the system.
Maneka knew the unarmed, agile transport vessels had no business anywhere near anyone who could shoot at them once their Bolos had been landed. “Drop and scoot” had been standard doctrine for the Brigade’s supporting Transport Command for centuries, after all. But that didn’t prevent a chill sense of abandonment as she watched their transportation racing to get far enough away from the planet to drop into hyper.
Talk about burning your bridges behind you, she thought wryly, as Allen knocked down a second recon drone, and surprised herself with a desert-dry chuckle of amusement.
“All right, people,” Colonel Tchaikovsky’s voice came over the Battalion command net from Unit 28/G-740- GRG. “We’re down, we’re in one piece, and we know where the Dog Boys are. And, unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of time. Commodore Selkirk is still wading into them, but it doesn’t look good for his task force. So we have to break into the Dog Boy position before any of their starships get loose and turn up to start dropping missiles on our heads as we advance. That’s going to limit our tactical options, and we have to assume the Dog Boys will manage to localize us and bring us under fire before we get into attack range. Gregg is loading movement orders to your Bolos now, and General Hardesty’s Marines will conform to our movements.”
Maneka watched the intricate pattern of lines and arrows representing the movement of the Battalion and the four Mark XXVII reconnaissance Bolos of the attached 351st Reconnaissance Company appeared on her secondary plot. The Battalion had dropped well within the Melconians’ theoretical engagement envelope, but the combined destruction of the warships which had been giving them firepower support and the loss of their orbital reconnaissance platforms had at least temporarily blinded the Puppies. No one could hit what they couldn’t see, so until the Melconians could positively locate the Battalion, all their firepower was useless. Which, of course, explained the drones Benjy and Allen had knocked down.
Colonel Tchaikovsky’s Bolo, Gregg, was feeding the Battalion’s movement plan simultaneously to the Marines, Maneka knew, and watched the blue icons of the Ninth Division flowing into formation behind the Battalion. Well behind the Battalion. Their infantry carriers and light supporting Whippet tanks, unlike those used by the Melconians, were all counter-grav supported, with a sprint speed of well over five hundred kilometers per hour. They would lie back, far enough to stay clear of the tornado of fire the Battalion could expect to draw as it advanced against the Melconian position.
If the Battalion succeeded in breaking that perimeter, the Ninth would come screaming in behind them, and Maneka had a very clear mental image of what the heavily armed Marine troopers in their individual powered combat armor would do to the Puppies if they could ever get to grips with their more lightly armored infantry adversaries. But unless the Battalion could open a breach for them, any attempt by the Marines to close with the enemy would be suicidal. So if the Battalion failed, instead of racing to exploit success, the Ninth’s troopers would use that same speed to fall back to the Chartres refugee centers where they might at least hope to kill a few more Melconians before the Puppies’ combat mechs ground them into the mud.
“All right, people,” Colonel Everard Tchaikovsky said as the final movement orders were acknowledged by all units. “Gregg estimates ninety-seven minutes to contact with the enemy. Let’s go.”
Green, rolling woodland spread out before Maneka in the panoramic view from Benjy’s forward optical head
