Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion Read online

  Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion

  D.K. Williamson

  . . . . .

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright 2015, DK Williamson

  Dead Eye Fiction Manufactory

  This book is presented free of DRM

  Table of Contents

  Star Map

  Prologue

  Part One: The Opening Stages

  SC-7

  Die in Place

  Blind Side

  Dug in like Armadillos

  A Hero Amongst Us

  Not a Weapon of War

  An Easy Job Really

  A Different Kind of War

  Like Smoke

  Part Two: Pushing Back

  The Fat Lady

  Wrong in the Head

  Beyond Help

  A Bunch of Damned Grunts

  One-Way Ticket

  A Rocky Start

  Extras

  . . . . .

  Star Map

  . . . . .

  Prologue

  The Long Distance Transit Gate changed everything.

  Humanity had finally pushed its way outward from Earth after centuries of manned spaceflight within the Sol system. Generation ships, stasis ships, seed vessels, and a myriad of other means of flinging people across the galaxy expanded the reach of humanity in a way that was once thought to be possible only in fiction. Humanity’s First Breath.

  Then it happened. Centuries later, someone, somewhere, found a device. Long abandoned, but intact, the device was at first thought to be proof of intelligent and sentient alien life, but that notion was quickly dispelled.

  The device was built by humans… humans who were travelling the stars 40,000 years before Earth’s inhabitants managed to achieve spaceflight.

  The mysterious device was a transit gate, and tapped into the mysteries of what was then called dark energy. In theory, the transit gate could transport a vehicle anywhere in the universe, but there was a catch: the longer the transit, the greater the error factor.

  Once the people of the time learned how to operate the transit gate, it wasn’t long before they could replicate it. At first, it was a hideously expensive endeavor, but innovation, curiosity, greed, and desperation, drove the push to build more gates and this in turn brought the cost down to the point that private ventures could pursue the construction of a transit gate.

  At first, it was a few dozen attempts to build a jump hole, a popular term for transit gates that would remain thousands of years later. Another few decades and there were hundreds, then thousands of transit gates being constructed, with many ventures building them in pairs, one to jump out, and the other to return. Many dispensed with such extravagance, they just went, jumping into the Black and trusting the luck. The Second Breath was underway, but no one realized it at the time.

  Blind leaps of faith into the void some called them. Blind transits, risking all.

  “It is not faith,” those against the orgy of exodus insisted. “It is chance. It is desperation and greed pushing people to risk everything and more.” Despite such warnings and objections, there was no stopping the drive into the Big Black.

  Humanity spread. Jump hole crews, as the transit gate constructors were commonly called, and their vehicle operators leapt to poorly surveyed and uncharted points, striving to hit on a lucky strike and return to tell of it. Most never returned, and their financers, investors, and backers lost what was ventured. Enough made it though, enough rewarded with wealth almost beyond measure, enough to encourage others, enough to fuel the fire for more jumps, and then more again. Explorers, settlers, miners, merchants, and more raced for the new systems, or sought their own to find.

  “Outward Bound.” That became the cry of every dissatisfied person or group, the desperate, the adventurous sorts, those that saw opportunity, and those that wanted a new start and a chance at riches.

  Much like a gold rush on ancient Earth millennia before, this new age of exploration, of settlement, of exploitation, caught the imagination of millions upon millions of people. The Space Rush, as it was called for a time, would come to be known as Humanity’s Second Breath.

  Eventually the rush slowed. Humanity had taken a glutton’s portion of opportunity, more than could be understood, an expansion beyond comprehension. The drive to push outward nearly ceased and transformed into a drive to assess what was in hand, and to contemplate what was to be done with such untapped and seemingly unlimited resources.

  Many of those who jumped to new frontiers did so with no intention of returning, some with warnings to others that following them was a bad idea.

  The Pythans were one such group. Long persecuted for their beliefs, they jumped, determined to succeed or fail on their own, trusting themselves and their gods. They killed any and all who followed them to their newly settled systems, including adventurous and foolish jump hole crews who ignored the warnings to steer clear. While the crews did not survive, the Pythans put their transport gates to good use alongside their own. Their society’s grasp on a tiny portion of the cosmos expanded steadily to become the Pythan Tridentate.

  The Pythan Tridentate, a polytheistic theocracy, eventually moved to exploit resources in a vast asteroid field that bordered the area they controlled, and it was there that they encountered other humans from systems on the other side of the asteroid field. These people viewed the Pythan political and religious system as abhorrent, just as the Pythans viewed theirs in a similar light. The Pythans labeled these humans as heretics. These heretics were also taking advantage of the asteroid field, and that, along with the conflicting ways of life the two groups followed, led to war. A war that lasted a quarter of a century and ended only after hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost on both sides. The two sides signed a treaty that established a wide neutral zone between the two groups, with but a single navigation lane through the asteroid field connecting the two.

  Since that time there had been very little contact between the Pythans and the other group of humans, who during the war formed the Coalition of Free Systems, and a peace had lasted for three centuries. That was about to change.

  -(o)-

  Part One: The Opening Stages

  …

  SC-7

  Monitor Station SC-7 was positioned on the edge of Coalition space, one of thousands of such stations. Most monitors were small, unmanned, and automated platforms, but manned stations made up approximately ten percent of the total. Their small crews performed maintenance on nearby unmanned monitors. Most of these were located on the edge of unexplored space, while some, like SC-7 were just inside the partition zone that separated Coalition space from Pythan space.

  The Space Forces troops on board Monitor Station SC-7 were playing cards, an ancient pastime of military personnel. Spades was the most popular game among the SF.

  The station’s instruments and computers, which were far more efficient at scanning the Black than humans, were set to follow automated protocols. These sensors would squawk at the crew in the rare instances that they detected something out of the ordinary.

  On this day, they squawked.

  The long-range detection routines picked up objects closing on the station at high speed. The programs running on electronic systems determined the identity of the objects: missiles.

  Alarms rang out, startling the card-playing troops briefly before they sprang from their seats and ran for duty stations, the game forgotten.

  “Missiles! More than a dozen, half of them coming at us. Hauling ass. We got… just over one minute, lieutenant,” one of the enlisted troops yelled to the station’s commanding officer.

  The lieutenant looked at the data on the screen in front o
f him. “We can’t survive this. Coms, set emergency messaging to sixteen, that’s one-six. Everyone else get to the escape pods.” The messaging code the lieutenant called for would signal they were under attack from the partition zone and this would likely be their sole notification to Coalition Command.

  “Broadcast set, message torps set, sir,” the communications sergeant said calmly as the rest of the small crew ran for the banks of escape pods nearby.

  “Send’em, sarge.”

  The sergeant punched a key on his console as he stood and looked at the lieutenant.

  “Torps are launched, sir.”

  “Escape pods, we got thirty-five seconds!”

  “Already on it, sir,” the NCO yelled as he sprinted for the row of pods.

  The lieutenant was hot on the sergeant’s heels and lifted his clinched right hand up and beside his head, pumping it up and down, signaling the troops already in their pods to launch.

  The lieutenant turned just as he got to his escape pod and slammed into the pads with his back. He punched a button inside and the pod slammed into the closed position with a hiss. Straps and pads automatically deployed to secure his head, torso, and legs in the pod. Next to him, he heard the bang of the commo sergeant’s pod launching. He reached up with a hand and punched the large red button in front of him. He had just enough time to grasp the handrails before he felt the straps over his shoulders dig in under the g-load as the pod blasted into space. He was clear of the station and on his way to Planet Werner.

  We’re at war, he thought.

  -(o)-

  Interlude

  The missile strike on SC-7 was the first of several attacks on monitoring stations in Coalition space.

  On the heels of the attacks came a Pythan force streaming down the sole navigation lane that linked Pythan and Coalition space. Coalition defenses in the Bryce system were quickly overwhelmed.

  The Pythans did not stop there. Bryce was linked via navigation lanes to two other systems, Tusk and Carlsbad. The forces there barely had time to muster defenses, which were woefully inadequate to stop the Pythan onslaught and were quickly brushed aside.

  From those two systems, the Pythans struck Fortune, Adams, and Caine, cutting off several other systems in the process.

  The blitz continued, moving on to Dina, Conway, Regent, Bradshaw, Prouste, Frisco, and Dodge, but in these systems the Pythans met the first significant resistance from Coalition Space Forces. It was in these systems the early battles would be fought, in space and on the ground. The Pythans came seeking the conquest, not destruction, of Coalition worlds, and the Coalition was not going to stand idly by and let it happen.

  One of the planets cut off by the Pythan attack was in the Lazarus system, the colony world of Horton. Like many such worlds, it had a small Coalition of Free Systems Land Forces presence, a battalion of infantry. It was common practice for Land Forces units to deploy to such planets periodically for a short length of time to train and to gain experience on lightly developed worlds. For the battalion on Horton, their latest deployment might be their last, and for one platoon, the Pythans may not be the only enemy they have to face.

  …

  Die in Place

  CFS Colony World, Horton

  “Hold your position, Cobalt-Four. I repeat, hold your position,” said the voice of Captain Trembley through First Lieutenant Gordon’s helmet headset. Trembley was the commander of Alpha Company, the company to whom Gordon’s 4th Platoon belonged.

  “Cobalt-Six, I will need artillery to do that,” Gordon replied, yelling over the sound of small arms fire and grenade explosions. “My platoon is under assault by at least two Pythan companies. They are trying to encircle us.”

  “Cobalt-Four, then call for it,” came the reply.

  “Cobalt-Six, recall that you locked us platoon leaders from the arty net,” Gordon said with an angry voice and a glare on his face. He wished the company commander could see him.

  “Cobalt-Four, this is Cobalt-Six, roger, stand by,” the captain replied with an irritated tone.

  And while we wait, my men die, Gordon thought.

  The Pythan fire had slackened and Gordon could see them pulling back into the dark from his position in his small command bunker. He adjusted the image on his visor display, trying to get the sensors on the night vision array attached to his helmet to reach farther. It didn’t help. The Pythans had faded into the deep shadows of the night once again.

  “What do they try next?” he said to himself.

  He looked to the command screen strapped to his left forearm. He brought up the platoon net with a touch of his finger.

  “Sergeant Fox, SITREP.”

  “We did okay, sir. No wounded or killed in the last attack. What did the commander say?”

  “He’s going to unlock the arty net.”

  “That’s something I guess, LT,” the platoon sergeant said using an almost universal Coalition forces term used for lieutenants, LT, pronounced as el-tee.

  “I suppose it is, sergeant, but he wants us to hold position.”

  “I’m not gonna pretend that I understand everything, but why are we still holding this damned hill?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, sarge.”

  “Die in place, that’s my guess, sir.”

  A tone sounded in Gordon’s ear. A quick glance at his command screen told him it was the company commander. He told Fox he was switching to the company net.

  “Cobalt-Six, this is Cobalt-Four, over.”

  “Cobalt-Four, Cobalt-Six. Artillery net is available. Be advised Alpha Company HQ is pulling back to Louistown along with first and second platoons.”

  Gordon’s face twisted in anger, then he punched the sandbag wall of the small command bunker he occupied.

  “Six, this is Four. Orders, sir?”

  “Four, hold your position until told otherwise. I need you to cover our withdrawal, over.”

  “Six, we are the only platoon in the company engaged with the Pythans. We’ll be five klicks from the nearest friendly unit when you leave. Five kilometers, sir.”

  “Four, I don’t understand what you are trying to say. We need you to cover our withdrawal. We’ll pull your platoon as soon as practicable.”

  “Cobalt-Six, this is Cobalt-Four. Roger, out,” Gordon growled. He punched the sandbags again.

  Gordon keyed the platoon net. “Sergeant Fox, could you come to my position.”

  “Roger, LT.”

  In less than a minute, the platoon sergeant arrived.

  “Bad news I take it, LT.”

  “Company HQ, along with first and second platoons, is pulling back to Louistown. We are to cover their withdrawal.”

  PSG Fox scowled. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense, sir. Third or fifth platoon moving this way?”

  The lieutenant shook his head.

  Fox turned around and looked out of the doorway of the bunker. He took his helmet off and rubbed the salt and pepper stubble on top of his head, then turned back to Gordon.

  “Son of a bitch, sir,” he said shoving his helmet onto his head. “We’re gonna lose a bunch of kids tonight, maybe all of them, and us along with them.”

  “I’m going to get battalion on the horn.”

  “Before you do that, let me talk to the battalion sergeant-major. We go back a ways. That way you don’t look like you’re going behind company’s back and the sergeant-major can drop a bug in the battalion commander’s ear.”

  Gordon smiled. “Still looking out for hapless lieutenants, sergeant?”

  “It’s a full time job with some of you, sir,” he said with a grin. He keyed the battalion frequency and waited for a few seconds. He keyed it again and waited.

  “LT, try and raise battalion,” he said with a scowl.

  Gordon had no more success than did PSG Fox. “Does that mean battalion got knocked out?” Gordon asked.

  “I’d bet on it, LT. It also might explain why the company HQ is running for Louistown. If the other compa
nies are falling back, our dear commander wants to be with the largest fighting force.”

  “He’d hang three of his platoons out to dry like this?”

  “Already done, sir,” the sergeant said. His voice sounded grim.

  The headset hissed. “We can see movement at the edge of night vision range,” said Squad Sergeant Harris of 1st Squad.

  “Roger that, sergeant,” Gordon answered. “We have artillery now, we’ll give them a surprise.”

  “LT, I’m going back down with the men,” Fox said, fastening the strap on his helmet.

  Gordon brought the artillery net up and set some artillery preplots, predetermined points for artillery to target that negated the need to call in geographical coordinates. This allowed for a much faster artillery response than using conventional call-for-fire procedures.

  “LT, Fox here,” the sergeant said over the platoon net, “looks like they are feinting on our right with the bulk of them coming left. I don’t think they’ve figured out how far our night vision reaches yet.”

  “Sending you the arty preplots, sergeant. Use them as you see fit.”

  “Sir,” said a new voice on the platoon net, “Baker here, there’s a shit ton of troops headed southeast. I can see four or five companies. I’d bet they’re headed for Louistown. Just on the edge of what I can pick out and fading.”

  “I got nothing, Private Baker,” Squad Sergeant Harris said as he looked in the direction Baker mentioned.

  “Uh, yeah,” Baker replied. “I have my night vision array connected to my rifle scope. The electronics in the scope buck up the range a little,” he said sheepishly.

  “You can burn out your night vision doing that,” SSG Harris said.

  “Never mind that right now,” Gordon said. “Good work, Baker. I’ll let Cobalt Six know. Sergeant Fox, you have the arty.”