Three seconds later two hundred neutron-enhanced nuclear mines, disguised as large railgun shot, detonated in a rough globe that surrounded and interpenetrated the enemy fleet. When the EMP faded and the sensors cleared, every one of the enemy cruisers drifted crippled through the void, or had been destroyed outright.

  All the bridge crew cheered until Absen waved a calming hand. “Good job. As I said, stick to the plan. But it’s not over yet. Reverse drive and keep firing. Hold them at optimum range as long as you can.”

  The Guardian, shrugging aside the deadly blasts with seeming indifference, still thrust forward at its maximum acceleration, intent on bringing its massive close-range weapons into play. Absen did not need to know their exact specifications to believe they would be devastating. Conquest was built to go head to head with a Meme Destroyer – a ship of a size equal to her own – and win every time, but this thing…he had not known fear for his own life in some time, but now he felt as if Death itself approached.

  Worse even than death was failure, and that was unthinkable. At least a million human lives depended on him and his valiant crews.

  “The Marines are down, sir,” Scoggins called, bringing Absen’s mind back to the greater battle. “They are all in the tunnel and the StormCrows killed off all the hypers.”

  “Then our job is to duel with this thing as long as we can, and buy them time.”

  * * *

  Battle armor is almost as good as a crash couch, Reaper lied to herself as the G forces squeezed her like toothpaste in a tube. Active link feeds from the assault sled’s sensors gave her a sense of place: one of hundreds of boats streaming down the wide tube leading thirty kilometers underground.

  Under full deceleration she could feel her eyes sinking in her sockets as Eden Plague and combat nanites struggled to repair cellular damage. Gravity waves roiled her inner ear as the minimal gravplates in the assault sled tried to keep the Gs within human tolerances.

  Just barely.

  At least they’re not shooting at us yet, she thought as the forces moderated and the pilot put them on the surface of the tunnel in what could only be describe as a controlled crash. Drop-ramps slammed down front and back, venting residual air in a swirl of oxygen snow.

  Reaper stood up, hefting her PRG-45 and checking its action. She took a deep breath and deliberately channeled her favorite drill instructors, yelling over the suitcomm link, “All right, everyone up and get off my sled! This ain’t a ruttin’ dayroom, you sodding diggers. You got two choices: kick alien arse or get my size eight where the sun don’t shine. Get off this vehicle and go kill something! GO GO GO!”

  Nine out of ten of the troops inside did just that, but one remained hunched over, suited arms wrapped around his armored knees. “Holstetter!” Reaper yelled, stomping over to shake him. “Get the hell up and moving.”

  The man just stayed there shaking, so she linked in to his suit and overrode his comms to hear him sobbing, blubbering. Snatching his weapon, she unbuckled him then placed a booted foot on his shoulder, shoving him sideways to tumble down the ramp. As soon as his battle-suited body rolled beyond the sled’s gravplates he bounced off the ground, to settle again slowly in the one-tenth G.

  Cursing at him, she slung her own weapon and grabbed his suit’s tow handle, setting him effortlessly on his feet. Projecting her words into his suit, she whipped him with her voice. “Holstetter, pull your head out of your arse and get moving. Your squad is already a hundred meters ahead of you. Are you going to let them down?”

  More blubbering was all she heard. Dammit, she told herself, every once in a while a newbie can’t hack it. Most are brave, but some are just cowards when it turns real.

  Calling up the location of the medical sleds, she hauled the worthless troop through lines of Marines debarking from their craft until she found the one she was looking for. Throwing Holstetter roughly at the corpsmen there, she then stripped him of his back-rack and weapon, tossing it down near an empty sled for a better Marine to use.

  Hurrying after her troops, Reaper soon came to Bravo Company’s assembly area and informed Holstetter’s sergeant that her squad would be a man down. Suitcomm HUD showed her where Bull was, standing on top of a heavy tank, surveying the situation. Jumping lightly five meters up, she clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry, boss. Had to deal with a li’l troop issue.”

  Bull grunted and pointed at the ragged thousand-meter wall in front of them at half a klick’s distance, where the heavy transports disgorged the brigade’s six remaining laser bores. “Seismics say it’s only eight hundred meters to the nearest tunnel. They should be through in two minutes.

  The bores, enormous lasers on squat crawlers, disembarked ponderously, then wheeled around in unison. Their carriers took off on minimum thrusters, clearing the area to the rear. Moments later the Marines’ visors dimmed to almost black as the blazing beams began to chew into rock and soil.

  At first there was no sound, only some trembling felt through boots as debris blasted backward to fall slowly to the ground, but as the huge tunnel filled with released gasses the Marines began to hear the rumbling hisses and pops of disintegrating materials. Within the predicted two minutes the lasers winked out, to reposition themselves and do it all over again. Soon twelve hot glassy tunnels, each twenty meters high and equally wide, stretched forward into the underground.

  Side by side, the Marines’ armored vehicles lined up to enter: heavy tanks each with a railgun in its turret and four smaller lasers facing the cardinal points. There weren’t many of them – Marines were mostly battlesuited infantry – but there were enough to assign a pair to each tunnel.

  Eight hundred meters was very close range for heavy fire, so over the heads of the tanks the laser bores, keeping their narrow beams high, became support weapons. Reaper and Bull watched as they fired pulses every few seconds down the rapidly cooling tubes, hoping to suppress whatever was at the other end.

  “Okay, here we go,” Bull said as the initiation order came over the command net. “Second Battalion, you know the drill, assault muster as briefed.” He watched as each company took its place, then broke into platoons. Below him a heavy-weapons section picked up their two semi-portable beamers, squat crew-served lasers attached by armored cables to fusion generators. Eight Marines carried each awkward two-part load with practiced ease in the low gravity: after all, they had trained in 1.4 G for the planet below.

  Rumbling forward over the fused tunnel floors, the heavy tanks kicked up fantails of scree with their biting metal treads. As soon as they disappeared into the tall tubes, Second Battalion Marines streamed into the leftmost two tunnels behind them.

  “We’ll follow behind Bravo Company on the far left,” Bull decided. “The flanks will either have the hardest fighting, or the biggest opportunity to break through.” He led the way into the chosen tunnel.

  “Or both. This feels like a deathtrap,” Reaper said to Bull privately as they jogged behind Bravo Company. “We haven’t a clue what they have waiting for us. Sure wish we could just send a missile ahead and nuke the crap out of them.”

  “What, you wanna live forever?”

  “Yeah, I was hoping.”

  “You heard all the briefings, SMAJ. We’re Marines, we’re here to assault and hold this thing.”

  Reaper chuckled grimly. “Preachin’ to the choir, Bull.” An almost-invisible laser bolt flashed by above, briefly igniting the flying dust over their heads. A moment later the tunnel shook with concussion.

  Up ahead, one of the two heavy tanks skewed sideways and burned, its main turret blown off and dangling by conduit. Flames blazed up, then snuffed as they used up all the oxygen leaking from the crew cabin.

  “Kak,” Bull cursed without heat. “Bravo Company, get up there and support that remaining heavy. Anyone see what got it?” A rush of armored troops covered the hundred yards at a bounding glide, the low gravity more of a hindrance than a help. Taking positions on each side, they began firing intermittently down the tunnel at unseen targets.

  “Some kind of rocket, sir,” came an unidentified voice.

  Bull ordered on the Bravo Company net, “Keep suppressive fire forward. Start popping some grenades at them, they should have almost no arc. Only four hundred meters to go.” He and Reaper moved forward next to the two semi-portables, half the company in front and half behind. Soon they could see sparkles beyond their own troops, though whether those were enemy muzzle flashes or friendly impacts there was no way to tell.

  Incoming ordnance streaked over their heads to detonate against the ceiling behind them. Their instinct was to duck, but battlesuits were proof against flying debris. Falling rock was another story. Screams and curses came over the net, and Bull snapped to Reaper, “Go see to that. I’ll keep pushing.”

  “Aye aye.” Hurrying back, she grabbed Marines and turned them around in the direction of the rock fall that half-blocked the tunnel behind them. “Delta Company, this is Sergeant Major Repeth. Everyone near this cave-in start digging our people out!” she ordered, then, “You too, Lieutenant, if you please, sir, get your people working!” Her words requested, but her tone made it an order.

  The green officer looked torn between supporting the attack and doing what the battalion sergeant major said, so she switched to a private channel and went on, “Sir, do what I ask or you will lose their respect. We have to clear the tunnel; we have to get our people out from under the rock.”

  “Right, Sergeant Major,” he responded shakily, turning toward the mound of rubble. “All right Delta, you heard the sergeant major, start putting those fancy augmentations to use!”

  Marines swarmed over the mountain of rock, picking up and throwing hundred-kilo stones with cybernetic strength, digging loose dirt and gravel with their hands, and soon began pulling armored figures out from under. Reaper, now certain the rescue effort was well in hand, slapped the lieutenant on the helmet to get his attention. “Sir, you take charge here please, I’m going forward. I suggest you clear a path along the edges and direct the rest of the company to hustle by you and support the assault. Once you’re sure you have everyone, follow along.”

  “Got it. Good hunting, Reaper.”

  “You got it…Safari, is it?”

  “Sarfati. Safari is close enough; I’ll take it.” He grinned through his faceplate.

  “You just earned your handle then, el-tee.” Slapping his armored shoulder, she bounded off at full speed after Bull.

  Coming upon the second heavy tank, she could see most of its treads blown off but its gun was still operational. The Marine infantry had swept past, so it had no targets in the narrow corridor. Its crew was already outside the vehicle breaking track to effect repairs.

  Hopeless, she thought to herself as she jogged past the immobilized vehicle. No time. Ships are dying up there, and Marines are dying up front. Ahead she could see the tunnel exit, with one squad holding in place, weapons ready but not firing. “Swede,” she called, recognizing the stripes and name Gunderson painted on the back of his armor, “what we got?”

  “Bull said to hold until the next company gets here. He took most of Bravo and the semis down that tunnel.” Swede pointed to the leftmost of three ten-meter wide tunnels exiting the large room their position overlooked.

  “Crazy bastard gonna be a hero, or dead.”

  “Or both,” Swede deadpanned.

  “And they ask me why I don’t want to be an officer.” Cautiously Reaper approached the lip of the tunnel in which they stood, ten meters up from the floor. The laser bores had dropped a large mass of rockslide against the back of the stadium-sized chamber, crushing alien machinery beneath it. Above and across, two smaller tunnels showed above the rubble.

  “There!” she said, then shoved Swede sideways. They fell slowly as impacts pocked puffs of rock-shrapnel off the floor where they had been standing. “Tunnels, ten o’clock high!”

  The rest of the squad lit up both entrances with their PRGs, portable railguns that fired heavy ferrocrystal BBs at breathtaking velocities. Thousands of rounds funneled crashing into the openings and the enemy fire stopped immediately in a cloud of rock shrapnel.

  “Have we even seen the enemy?” Reaper asked.

  “Neg. That was the first fire we took,” Swede replied as they bounded to their feet. Looking back the way they had come, he pointed. “Here they are.”

  Reaper turned to see a double line of Marines approaching fast, so she said to Swede, “Go follow Bull. I’ll direct traffic here.” As soon as he and his squad had jumped down to the floor, she held up her hands to slow the approaching troops and tell them what to do.

  * * *

  “All right, now that the landing force is down they’re on their own,” Absen declared. “And so are we. Leave one wing of Crows there to cover the Marines, the rest to rendezvous with us. Any fighters that can’t fight, return to the carriers.”

  “Aye, sir,” Commander Johnstone responded, passing the orders.

  “Sir,” Okuda spoke up, “the Guardian is still chasing us faster than we can fall back. They will catch us behind the moon.”

  “No, we need to stay in view of the planet, and those orbitals,” Absen replied. “Thrust to the oblique; don’t let it eclipse our view.”

  Okuda opened his eyes and turned to stare at the admiral, who gazed back imperturbably. The helmsman’s eyes seemed to ask, what is it you’re not telling me? Absen shook his head imperceptibly, and Okuda closed his eyes again. Turning to his cockpit again, he plunged back into his virtual senses.

  “Crossing six hundred thousand klicks,” Ford called. “I think we’re getting more standard railgun hits, but only because their fusors are picking off all of the specials.”

  “How’s the ammo holding out?”

  Ford shook his head. “We’re using a lot, flinging it at them at long range like this. Most of it is missing, and I have to keep the pattern spread or the Guardian will just dodge the whole thing. It’s a tradeoff between concentrated damage and hit probability.”

  “I didn’t ask for a tactical analysis, Ford. Tell me how long can we keep up our fire.”

  Ford dipped his head. “At this rate we’ll run out of railgun shot well before he catches us. Perhaps ten minutes.”

  “Cut it back to harassing fire, then. Keep tossing a few large rounds, force him to destroy them, but save the nukes.”

  Fifteen long minutes went by as the Guardian chased them and they held their range open, pecking away at the giant sphere as they crabbed like a boxer circling the ring. Advancing inexorably, it seemed like a force of nature instead of warship.

  * * *

  Your job is not to stand in the front line, Reaper reminded herself. A Sergeant Major’s role is to lead, direct and support. That’s why she waved platoon after platoon past her and into the tunnels, until finally Third Platoon, Delta Company jogged up to her, Safari in the lead.

  “Echo Company is three hundred meters back, by the broken tank,” Safari explained. “Captain Choi insists on getting his armor past the disabled heavy before his infantry deploys.”

  Her first instinct, to go back and browbeat the cautious company commander into moving, lost out to her duty to the battalion as a whole. “All right. I sent Delta First and Second platoons through that center tunnel, Fourth to the right. They are meeting light resistance and report pushing forward toward a large tunnel complex. I can’t get through to Bull on suitcomm, so I respectfully suggest we haul arse up and find out what’s going on. Sir.”

  “Yes, mother,” Safari quipped. “THIRD PLATOON, FOLLOW ME!” Forty Marines bounded forward in two loose lines, leaping lightly to the floor ten meters below, then charging into the leftmost tunnel. Automated stabilization programs fired tiny bursts of suit jets to keep them upright and moving correctly, but even so more than one of the green diggers managed to bounce himself off the ceiling from overjump.

  Reaper brought up the rear, sending her ultra-wideband radio ranging ahead, querying on the command net. Finding nothing, she tried Bravo Company’s freq. Nothing. Then she switched to Delta First platoon, then Second.

  Bingo.

  Gabbles of combat noise came through in broken pieces, sounds of a firefight. “Third Platoon, I hear Second in a furball up ahead. Look sharp.”

  A moment later something slammed her sideways, driving her into the starboard tunnel wall. Zero-G reflexes took over as she turned off her stabilizer and flipped upside down in midair, kicked off the ceiling, then rotated back upright. Something big…

  Out of a steampunk nightmare reared a boring machine, rotating cones covered with carbon teeth tearing at the tunnel walls. It had struck her from the left and thrown her across the room in a spray of rock, and now ground forward into the right side of the tube, crossing as if to create a perpendicular access. A few seconds of drilling and it was through, spitting gravel and dust behind it as it bored toward the next tunnel.

  On its heels came armored Hippos, enormous beings three meters tall, weighing a ton each with armor and carrying weapons to match. She found herself all alone behind the mass of enemy pushing into the tunnel as they turned to take Third Platoon from the rear.

  “THIRD, AMBUSH REAR!” she screamed across her suitcomm, but it was too late.

  Pulses of plasma from the Hippo’s huge guns ripped apart the rear ranks of Third Platoon. In response, Reaper detached all eight grenades from their niches in her armor and used her link to set them for command detonation even as she pitched them in a group under the enemy’s feet.

  Only one creature was looking her way; the Hippo unit had obviously had some form of observation that allowed them to time their ambush to when the Marines had gone past, and did not expect resistance from the rear. Perhaps, also, they underestimated the much-smaller humans, not taking them seriously.

  Reaper changed their minds.

  Snatching her PRG up again, she drilled the Hippo as it swung its weapon in her direction. On full auto, a one-second burst blasted out over one hundred ferrocrystal BBs in a tiny reproduction of the battleships’ railguns, different only in its scale. At thousands of meters per second each one-gram projectile penetrated her target’s armor and, after slowing inside flesh, ricocheted around inside the creature.