Sword of Axia (The Arcadian Jihad) (22 page)

The man nodded and signaled the Axian vehicle, then he opened the hatch and climbed out with his hands up. As Blas watched the screen, troopers ran forward and roughly dragged the Commander to the ground where they attached manacles to his hands. Blas went back to Serena and looked around wildly. There was a compartment built into the side of the vehicle obviously for carrying spare parts and equipment. It was half-empty, he threw the rest of the contents onto the floor as if they’d been left there when the vehicle came to its abrupt halt, the compartment looked just large enough. He dumped Serena inside, climbed in after her and pulled the hatch closed. Through the thin internal walls he heard the Axians climb in and order the crew outside. Then they walked around, obviously making a cursory inspection. He heard a man give orders.

“Hitch this up to one of our Mk Vs and tow it out, we’ll take it back with us, our technical people may be interested in looking at an undamaged N34.”

Then they were left in silence as the troopers left the cabin and went back to their own vehicle to continue the fight against the Rescom force. Blas climbed out and went forward to inspect the cabin, it was empty. They’d left the systems online and he was able to see the battlefield on the tactical screen. Rescom was still giving a good account of itself, although outgunned and outnumbered they were taking down a disproportionate number of the enemy, but as Smetana had said, the math didn’t add up. They had to do something, and fast. He lurched yet again as the N34 moved. They’d connected a towline and were pulling it out of the hole. As they reached level ground they kept moving, he realized that they were towing him all the way back to their base. There was only one course of action open to him, he had to rouse Serena.

Smetana and Guide Tell saw the debacle of the lost vehicle. It was obvious that they were close to losing the battle. Smetana explained that they were out of options, out of armor, out of men, there was little left to fight with. They were beaten.

“Unless you can get us more armor, Mr. President.”

“They’ve got their own problems up there, Mr. Smetana. If I order them to detach ships to bring down reinforcements they could lose the rest of the Fleet. We’ve already lost the Vice-President, we cannot allow any more losses.”

“They will get worse whether you like it or not if we don’t do something, Sir. We could lose the planet, you know what that means.”

They all knew what it meant. The supply of food, the most vital key to power in the Nine Systems. Never mind the armaments, even the capital on Axis Nova. Food was number one, whoever controlled Corazon could dictate their own terms. For any enemy that failed to agree to those terms the rulers of Corazon could threaten to destroy the food supply. Without food, people would rise up and riot. Corazon had to be held.

“I’ll contact the Fleet and order Admiral Rusal to send down the last of the armor. I hope you know what you’re doing, if we lose both the space battle and the surface battle it’s all over for us.”

There was nothing to say to that. They had to have those weapons and armor, they needed every resource they had in the armory. If they lost then, the war was over.

Rusal’s voice came back over the speaker, his reply chilled them. “It’s impossible, Guide Tell, we’re in very deep trouble, we’re fighting for our lives up here.”

Tell told him about the loss of the Vice-President. “We’re fighting for more than our lives, Admiral, we’re fighting here for everything we stand for. We have to have that armor, without it we lose the planet. Rescom lives or dies down here on Corazon.”

They heard the Admiral talking in the background. Then he came back to them.

“Very well, I’ll send down eighty freighters and twenty light cruisers as escorts, each freighter is carrying two N34s. That’s everything we have left, we’ve taken a bad beating up here. It’ll give you one hundred and sixty ASFVs. As soon as they’re uploaded get those ships back up here, Mr. President, if we’re still fighting we’ll need them.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

They watched the battle for another ten minutes, appalled at the massive loss of life, the destruction of almost their entire armored force. At last they heard the signal from the incoming ships, they were about to land two miles behind the command bunker, out of range of the rampaging Axian armor. They switched to the rearward screen and watched as the ships floated down, the ramps were lowered and the N34s rolled down on to the surface and formed up ready to go immediately into battle. Smetana spoke to his comms officer, “Make sure they know that they have to get very close to the Trifax Mk Vs if they are to have any chance of killing them.”

The man nodded and sent the signal out to the new arrivals. The vehicles formed up into a huge armored wedge and began the advance toward the battlefield, the bloody scrapyard littered with broken armor and corpses, lashed with powerful destructive beams. The remnants of the Rescom force fought on, when the fresh vehicles arrived they seemed to gather a second wind and for a time the Axians were driven back, surprised by the influx of new, fresh troops. They regained a mile of lost ground, moving the battlefront closer and closer to the Axian headquarters, but it couldn’t last, they were still desperately outnumbered and once more the superior weight of numbers, firepower and armor began to tell. From the command bunker they saw the battle line slowly start to lose ground again and edge back towards them.

In the captured command ASFV, Blas was doing his utmost to deal with Serena. At first, she was unconscious, then she started to groan in pain and Blas brought her water and tried to make her more comfortable.

“Serena, can you hear me?”

“Constantine, is that you?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

Her voice was strange, as if she was drugged. He shook her gently, she was needed so desperately. There might, just might be time to turn the battle around, he’d seen the reinforcements go in and for a short time there was a faint hope that it could be enough, but once more, the figures didn’t add up. He looked down at the Vice-President, remembered her in bed, her beautiful, smooth, naked body, sensuous, the faint, mysterious odor that was so feminine and yet something more, a heady mix of the inexplicable and the unattainable. He was in no doubt, he had not had her, quite the reverse, she had taken him, he still didn’t understand how it had happened. She spoke to him again.

“What is happening with the battle, have we won yet?”

“We’re losing, Serena. There are too many for us. The reinforcements are being pushed back too, if something doesn’t happen soon they’ll break and start running. We’re about to lose Corazon.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry, Serena. If you hadn’t been knocked out it may have made a difference, you sure made the Axians afraid to come near.”

“It’s not too late, Constantine. Help me up, get me out of this tin can.”

He looked at her for a few moments, wondering how badly concussed she was. “Serena, you don’t understand, there’s a huge battle raging out there, plasma blasts are crisscrossing the whole of the battlefield even as we speak. It’s death to go out there.”

“Death to stay in here,” she retorted. “Get me outside, Mr. Blas.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not helping you go to your death.”

He was flung back by the appalling, terrible vision that seared into his innermost thoughts, there was pain, terror, horror, he cringed back into the furthest corner of the vehicle. His head hurt, it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, he felt it about to explode, oh, the pain, death wouldn’t be as bad as this. He started banging his head against the hull of the N34. Then the pain stopped, instantly, as if a switch had been flicked off. His eyes had been tight shut, he opened them to see her staring at him.

“I didn’t want to hurt you too badly, my dear Constantine. But I need you to understand what a tiny fraction of my power feels like.”

He was awestruck. “Are you all like that, you Orphexians? Do you all have that kind of power?”

“Some of us have much more, Mr. Blas, when we combine our powers the results can be, shall we say, startling, we have been known to change the course of history. We are forbidden from using the power for personal gain, only for the saving of lives or the benefit of humanity as a whole. We are born to serve, remember. Get me outside, we will be safe.”

He helped her get up and out of the hatch, the scene outside was nightmarish, a landscape littered with smashed and burning armored hulks, plasma flashes like the vengeful attack of a maddened band of mythical Gods. Some of the salvos hit their targets and yet more vehicles were forced out of the battle, broken, burning, some of their crews suffered the same fate. A few blasts came near Serena and Blas.

“Are you able to do anything?” he said to her worriedly. “We haven’t got much time.”

“Be quiet and leave me alone, I need to work. Perhaps you can contact the command bunker and let them know that we are alive.”

“You’ll be alright out here on your own?”

“There’s nothing more you can do for me. Go.”

He climbed back through the hatch and sat in the commander’s seat. The commset was working and he made contact with Smetana.

“You’re still alive?” Berg sounded astonished. “We thought we’d lost you for good. At least there’s some good news.”

“How is the battle progressing?”

There was a short silence. Then his voice came back on the speaker. “It’s not good. We’ve thrown everything into it, but it’s not enough. They’re pushing us back.”

“The Vice-President regained consciousness, she’s about to start working on the Axians again. It may be enough.”

“Serena? Thank the stars, we saw what she did earlier when you started forward, it could turn the battle. What we need is for the Axians’ morale to collapse, it’s the only move left to us, we can’t beat them with sheer numbers.”

“I’m sure she understands that,” Blas said.

“Of course. Good luck, Constantine. We’ll be watching for any sign that they’re losing heart.”

The commset went quiet and Blas switched his attention to the screen. At the widest angle of view he could see Serena standing on her own, motionless on the plain that swirled with dust and was still alive with deadly plasma flashes. Was it his imagination or were the Axian forces edging away from where she stood? But still, she couldn’t control where random gunfire struck, at any moment she could be hit by a burst that would turn her into a crisp. His eyes roamed around the screens, the controls and monitors that controlled the vehicle’s communications, motion and weaponry. Weaponry, of course, at least he could do something instead of sitting here worrying. He switched to the tactical screen, the main gun was charged ready to fire, targeting systems were operational. Now all he needed was to find a suitable Axian target to shoot at. He soon found it, a Mk V was at a standstill, less than a mile away from them. He checked the screen, it was just about at the extreme range for an effective shot. The Axian fired a burst that hit the ground about fifty yards from where Serena was standing. They shouldn’t have missed at that range, clearly they were finding it difficult to burn through her mind control and target her, but that didn’t mean that at any second they wouldn’t be able to find a way to loose off a burst that would destroy her. He switched to the manual targeting device and centered the gun on the distant Mk V. He fired and saw the plasma burst hit the distant Axian, but inside his vehicle there was a shower of electrical flashes from the fire control system. Smoke clouded the inside of the cabin and the alarm started to wail, the gun’s control system was on fire. Something had gone wrong, the damage done when they fell into the hole on the plain had been more extensive than he’d realized. He hit the emergency extinguishers and the sparks ceased. On the screen, he saw swirling dust as if some storm had blown over the target. He held his breath, waiting for it to clear. At least no more bursts were impacting near Serena, but his armament was wrecked, there was nothing left to fight with. If that last burst hadn’t knocked out the Mk V, they were finished.

System Standard 2728.1312 Battlecruiser Rex Vitas above Planet Corazon

They were fighting tenaciously, but the battle was still going against them, Rusal was not so stupid as to deny the obvious. They’d taken more heavy damage to the flagship, hit after hit had reduced both their defensive and offensive systems to less than half of their normal levels. Their fleet of cruisers supported by the flagship had grouped tightly together and formed a massive fist with which to launch a single devastating strike on the enemy flagship. Then they had flung themselves in a concerted attack at the Sword of Axia. The ships had merged in a swirl of gunfire that had lit up space for thousands of miles around the field of battle, when it cleared half of them were limping away from the engagement. Many of the remainder were ruined hulks, destined to float for all eternity, or perhaps until they were pulled into the gravity of a planet or passing asteroid and sucked to their doom. The Axian Battlecruiser hadn’t got away unscathed either, the Rescom ships had scored several hits on their batteries and the engines were also running on reduced power. Only swift action by the ship’s damage control parties had prevented the flagship of the Axian Fleet from being brought to a standstill, but they’d managed to patch up the damage and were now limping along on a fraction of their normal power. On the Rex Vitas Rusal felt angry, there’d been so much bloodshed, so much loss of life, so many ships destroyed and they’d come so close. But close wasn’t enough, they’d needed to force a defeat on the Axians. The best they could hope for now was to live to fight another day, the Axians couldn’t produce enough force to wipe them out completely but at the end of the battle, they would hold the field, not Rescom. It meant they’d have to limp away and hide from the inevitable retaliation until they were ready to try again. Then it would be more lives, more bloodshed and more ships. When would it end? He considered calling for a withdrawal now, but if he did the ground forces would be at the mercy of the Axians, they’d simply land and reinforce their assault force on Corazon and the planet would fall. No, he’d have to stay until the issue was decided. He almost lost his footing as yet another blast got through and impacted on their fragile shields.