Maxwell Saga 5: Stoke the Flames Higher Read online

  Stoke the Flames Higher

  Book 5 of the Maxwell Saga

  by

  PETER GRANT

  Fynbos Press

  Copyright © 2016 by Peter Grant. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters

  and events portrayed in this book are fictional,

  and any resemblance to real people

  or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Luca Oleastri:

  http://www.innovari.it

  Cover image supplied by Dreamstime:

  http://www.dreamstime.com

  Cover design by Oleg Volk:

  http://www.olegvolk.net

  This book is dedicated to my wife, Dorothy,

  without whose support I’d never be able to do this.

  For other books by Peter Grant,

  see his Amazon.com author page

  Contents

  October 2, 2851, GSC

  November 3-4 2851 GSC

  November 9-10 2851 GSC

  November 18 2851 GSC

  November 25 2851 GSC

  November 27 2851 GSC

  November 29, 2851 GSC, 08:00

  November 29, 2851 GSC, 12:00

  November 29, 2851 GSC, 14:30

  November 30, 2851 GSC, 03:30

  December 1-5, 2851 GSC

  December 5, 2851 GSC, 18:30 – 24:00

  December 6, 2851 GSC, 04:30

  December 6, 2851 GSC, 06:30 – 12:00

  December 6, 2851 GSC, 07:00 – 10:00

  December 6, 2851 GSC, 12:00 – 16:00

  December 6, 2851 GSC, 18:00 – 24:00

  December 7, 2851 GSC, 05:00 – 09:30

  December 7, 2851 GSC, 10:00 – 12:00

  December 7, 2851 GSC, 12:00 – 24:00

  December 28, 2851 GSC

  January 12, 2852 GSC

  February 9, 2852 GSC

  March 2, 2852 GSC

  About The Author

  October 2, 2851, Galactic Standard Calendar

  “Damn, they blew the hell out of this gatehouse!” Major Brooks Shelby wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  His boss shrugged. “Just another suicide bomber in a transporter loaded with home-made explosives, although they must have used more than usual. Once they blew the gate apart, they chopped the garrison to pieces – not that a single platoon was much of a garrison.”

  Brooks shook his head as he glanced at Lieutenant-Colonel Neilson. “I don’t think the bomb was home-made, sir. The blast flattened the staggered vehicle barriers at the entrance, the walls… everything within a radius of fifty meters. A low order explosion wouldn’t do that much damage to reinforced plascrete.”

  “Your specialization is Heavy Weapons, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know what you’re talking about, then. If this wasn’t their usual home brew, what was it?”

  “Look how badly the rubble’s been shattered, sir, and how far the fragments have spread. The velocity of propagation of the explosion was far greater than anything we’ve seen here before. I’d say they’ve got in a shipment of off-world military super-explosives, probably the equivalent of our C-46. I’ll have our patrol take samples of explosives residue for analysis.”

  The Colonel winced. “Bloody hell, that’s all we need! Our armor can’t protect us against super- explosives at close range.” He glanced at the Marines of Third Platoon, Company B, 24th Marine Expeditionary Battalion, as they combed through the remains of the base, collecting the bodies of attackers and defenders alike, laying them out in rows for the Graves Registration detachment to record their details and put them into body bags. The Marines were entirely encased in battle armor. The artificial ‘muscles’ of its exoskeleton gave them ten times the strength and speed of unarmored troops, and its all-round sensors gave them far better perception than unaided human senses.

  Neilson went on, “Where would they get it from? It takes an advanced chemical-industrial base to produce super-HE, and I’m pretty sure Devakai doesn’t have that. Besides, super-explosives are controlled under interplanetary agreements.”

  “Yes, sir, but some planets that make it will sell anything to the highest bidder without worrying too much about paperwork or interplanetary law. There’s a lot more Kotai fanatics on Devakai than there are here on Athi. They could easily have raised enough money to buy some super-HE for their fellow believers here. It’d only take forty or fifty kilograms to blow apart the defenses like this. That’d also fit the size of the crater.” He nodded to the depression blown into the iron-hard ground in front of where the gate had once stood. “Even a couple of tons of home-brewed bang wouldn’t make a hole that big, but fifty kilos of C-46 might.”

  “Uh-huh.” They paused for a moment, both swallowing queasily as they watched a Marine use a battered entrenching tool, once the property of the late defenders, to scoop unidentifiable semi-liquid fragments of flesh, bone and blood from the ruins of the gatehouse and put them in a bucket. Turning away, Brooks’ boss continued, “You know what this is likely to mean for us, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir – and I’m willing to bet it’s heading for us right now.” Brooks indicated a white-colored assault shuttle that had just appeared around the shoulder of a hill. It was decelerating as it descended in their direction.

  “You’re probably right. He’s not going to like your theory.”

  The new arrival touched down in a cloud of dust beside the two assault shuttles of Third Platoon, and the one Brooks and his boss had flown from Battalion HQ to join them. Its rear ramp whined down. A short, stocky figure strode impatiently from the vehicle, looked around, saw the two senior officers, and headed straight for them.

  They came to attention as he approached, and Lieutenant-Colonel Neilson saluted. “Good morning, General.”

  “Mornin’.” Major-General Attenborough’s response was curt, clipped, his pronounced Australian accent audible even in the single word. His skin was dark and leathery, tanned by long exposure to the elements on his native planet of Darwin. “What’ve you learned?”

  Neilson explained what Brooks had deduced about the explosives used by the attackers. “Once they’d blasted their way through the hardened perimeter, they swamped the defenders by sheer weight of numbers. The Kotai don’t care about casualties, of course – death in battle is martyrdom, as they see it. It looks as if they lost two attackers for every defender they killed.”

  “But they still wiped out the local platoon.”

  “Yes, sir. There were no survivors.”

  “And now I’ve got Athi’s government screaming that instead of the United Planets peacemaking mission improving security as we were supposed to, we’ve made matters worse by provoking greater aggression from the Kotai. How the hell am I supposed to answer that?”

  “You could point out that we’re here because they asked for us, sir,” Brooks offered. “If they don’t want or need us any longer, they can always tell the UP to send us home. I’m sure your New Brisbane troops would be just as happy to oblige as our Marines.”

  “You can say that again!” Attenborough’s voice was fervent. “Still, that’s not going to happen. They’re now demanding that we send our armored troops to garrison the more important outposts. They reckon the Kotai won’t be able to walk all over us, the way they’re doing to less-well-trained and -equipped local forces.”

  Neilson said, “I daresay they’re right about that, sir, but I’m sure your orders concerning Darwin’s armored battalion are the same as mine from the Marine Corps. Even though we can send platoons or companies to occupy firebases in the short term, we must preserve unit integrity over the long t
erm, and try to keep our forces concentrated as far as possible.”

  “Yes, Darwin’s orders are the same, and for good reason. Permanently breaking up an armored force into sub-units merely offers them to the enemy in bite-size mouthfuls. Military history’s full of that mistake. I’ll just have to be diplomatic when I tell the Athi government to forget about it.”

  “There may be a way, sir,” Brooks said thoughtfully. “I’m sure your Darwin battalion’s sending out platoon-strength patrols into the mountains, just as we are, to find and fix Kotai groups so it can take them out.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Why don’t both battalions use that as cover to detach a couple of platoons apiece for what we might call ‘extended patrols’, sir? Each could send out, say, six or seven platoons one night, but only five would come back. The others would use the speed of their powered armor to circle around the Kotai area and reinforce a couple of Athi garrisons before dawn. If they move fast and quietly, they can be under cover before anyone spots them. If we pick the garrisons carefully, choosing those likely to be targeted, we can give the Kotai a very unpleasant surprise when they make their move.”

  Neilson grinned. “I like it. A company-size Kotai raid’s usually enough to take out an Athi platoon-strength garrison, but they’d need half a battalion of their unarmored fanatics to worry one of our armored platoons. Our weapons are better, and each platoon has hoversats and micro-drones for surveillance. With a little luck, we can put a real hurt on their raiders.”

  General Attenborough was also smiling. “I’ll talk to my Darwin battalion commander and have him liaise with you, and ask my G-2 to check the latest intelligence, to identify garrisons likely to be attacked soon. If both battalions send out four platoons between them, we might rack up a big score, and make the Kotai reluctant to waste more of their fanatics on fruitless attacks. They’ve lost a lot of people since we arrived and started pushing them back into the mountains. They don’t have many to spare anymore.”

  “Trouble is, it’s too easy for them to bring in more fighters from Devakai, along with more weapons, sir,” Neilson pointed out. “My Executive Officer,” and he nodded to Brooks, “thinks they used super-HE on the base here. He says it was far too powerful an explosion to have been their usual home-brewed bang. They may have smuggled some super-HE past our patrols.”

  Attenborough scowled blackly. “You may be right. I’ll be seeing Commodore Singh this afternoon. I’ll ask him whether he’s heard anything from the UP about the squadron of heavy patrol craft he’s requested. His four Bihar Confederation destroyers are all very well to face off against intruding warships, but that’s not our problem here. There simply aren’t enough of them to adequately cover a double-star system like this. We don’t have proper orbital patrols or customs inspection facilities, and the planetary orbital control system was destroyed in the uprising, so we’ve no way to prevent smuggling unless the ships are intercepted by the destroyers on their way into the system. That doesn’t happen very often – only when they’re in position to do so.”

  “I heard something two days ago, from a friend’s message via the latest dispatch vessel, sir,” Brooks informed him. “Steve Maxwell’s a Lieutenant-Commander in our Spacer Corps. He says a squadron of eight patrol craft will be here by mid-October, along with its depot ship. That’s over and above the hospital ship the Fleet sent here last month.”

  “Thank God for that!” The relief in the General’s voice was obvious. “Your Fleet’s really come through for us on this mission. Edith Cavell has transformed our medical care. She’s handling all major surgery and tertiary care cases now, since so many of the planet’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed. We’re setting up a new recovery facility on Thanja, a big island a hundred clicks offshore. Once it’s up and running, she’ll send stabilized patients down there for longer-term rehabilitation. The Kotai have never operated there, so the patients can recover in peace.”

  “Let’s hope the Kotai don’t hear about it, and try one of their suicide raids,” Neilson observed gloomily.

  “We’re interdicting the seaborne approaches, so I don’t think they can do that,” the General assured him. “We –”

  He was interrupted by a shout of alarm from a Marine a hundred meters away, projected at full volume from his armor’s speaker and simultaneously broadcast over the platoon’s radio frequency, crackling from the radio at Brooks’ shoulder. “This Kotai’s still alive! Look –”

  His words were cut off by the bellow of an explosion. The Marine vanished in a vicious yellow-orange flash, instantly smothered by a huge cloud of dust and debris. The three senior officers hit the deck and covered their heads, pressing themselves flat as debris large and small showered all around them, pattering and thumping as it hit the ground. A metal roofing sheet flew low and flat overhead with a sinister whispering sound. They heard a thud and a gasp from behind them. Brooks twisted his head to look, and had to force himself not to vomit. The sheet had struck one of the General’s shuttle crew at navel height, cutting her in half as cleanly as a sword blade. Intestines and other, less identifiable detritus spilled from the woman’s bisected torso as she collapsed.

  As the rain of rubble ceased, the three men hoisted themselves to their feet. The General hurried over to his shuttle crew, who’d gathered around their fallen comrade, while Brooks and his boss made their way through the wreckage of the outpost to where the explosion had occurred.

  “Looks like you were right about super-HE,” Neilson said grimly as they picked their way through the wreckage. “That was no ordinary explosion.”

  “I hate it when I’m right about something like that, sir.”

  They were met by the First Lieutenant in command of the platoon-strong patrol. He was supervising as four of his troops carried away the body of the Marine who’d discovered the survivor. He turned from watching them to see his superiors approaching, and saluted.

  “How is he?” Neilson demanded.

  “Corporal Mulson is dead, sir.” The younger officer’s voice was tired, flat, frustrated. “That explosion – it must have been a suicide vest – blew his armor into a concave shape. He must have died instantly from crush injuries, even though the blast itself couldn’t reach him.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” The battalion commander’s voice was genuinely sympathetic. “How –”

  He was interrupted as the rest of the platoon began firing careful, aimed, spaced shots from their beam rifles at every visible Kotai body. The Lieutenant said, “I’ve just ordered them to make sure all the Kotai dead are really dead, sir. I’m not going to risk more of my Marines’ lives through misplaced attempts at mercy towards fanatics who want to take us with them when they die.”

  “In this specific case, I can’t argue with you,” Neilson agreed reluctantly. “However, make sure they understand that the order applies to this place and time only. I’ll discuss this with General Attenborough. He’ll have to liaise with the United Planets command structure to come up with a policy for the mission as a whole. We can’t just arrogate to ourselves the right to take no prisoners.”

  “Understood, sir. There’s something else you should know. Sergeant McKenzie!”

  “Here, sir!” A Marine straightened from where he was searching a pile of rubble twenty meters away.

  “Over here!”

  “Aye aye, sir!” The man ran over, the ‘feet’ of his armor crushing broken bricks beneath them with a crunching sound.

  “Show the Colonel those clippings your squad found.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The Sergeant fumbled in a compartment of his armor and withdrew half a dozen paper clippings. “We found these on the bodies of some of the dead insurgents, sir.” He handed them to Neilson, who studied them curiously, passing them to Brooks as he read each one.

  “They look like old-fashioned newspaper clippings,” the Lieutenant-Colonel observed.

  Brooks nodded. “That’s what they are, sir. Problem is,
there are no newspapers published here on Athi – everything’s electronic; so, where did these come from?” He reached for the microphone clipped to his shoulder. “Exec to HQ Shuttle Two. Send our liaison officer to join us. Over.”

  “Shuttle Two to Exec, wilco, sir, over.”

  “Exec to Two, standing by.”

  A dark-skinned figure in a light khaki uniform ran down the ramp of the shuttle and hurried over to the group. He was panting by the time he reached them. Brooks showed him the clippings. “Captain Kavarai, what do these say and where do they come from?”

  The local officer read them quickly. “Sir, these speak of a group of Kotai ‘warriors’, as they call them, departing for what they proclaim is a ‘martyrdom mission’. Details in the reports and captions to the pictures place them on Devakai, two months ago.”

  Brooks commented, “And those pictures show a group of twenty to thirty people.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Brooks turned to the Lieutenant. “Make sure your people get good facial images of all the Kotai dead before they bag and burn them. We’ll match them to these pictures to see how many of this group were among the attackers. If they aren’t all here, that means some of them didn’t take part in this attack – and they’ll be planning others.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Brooks looked at his boss. “The pictures show them heavily armed, sir, and with a pile of boxes and bags in front of them. Ten will get you one some of the boxes were filled with super-HE. They used some of it here, but how much more did they smuggle in with them, and where is it now?”

  “You know, I really wish you hadn’t asked that, Major,” Neilson said with another sigh. “I suspect we’re going to find out the answer real soon now – and we’ll probably wish we hadn’t!”

  “Yes, sir. Meanwhile, we’d better give these clippings to the General. He’ll want to show them to Commodore Singh and the civilian UP mission leadership. They’re the best evidence we’ve seen yet that the Kotai are being rearmed and reinforced from off-planet on a regular basis.”