Edward Grant - Rebellion

“How bad was the attack?” Merle’s voice said from Logan’s helmet speakers.

“Three dead so far, sir,” one of the medics replied. “At least a dozen wounded.”

Volkov’s familiar voice joined the chatter on the company net. “Would have been much worse without the point-defence guns, sir. They hit most of the mortar bombs.”

“The ones that got through still caused a lot of damage.”

“They’re all we’ve got, sir. We’re spread thin on this planet. We have to pick and choose were to put them.”

“No-one expected the insurgents to attack their own people just to get at us. What kind of psychos would do that?”

Governor Porcher strolled along the street toward them, with Poulin at his side. Chaput followed close behind them. Porcher’s suit looked as though it had just been cleaned.

Chaput’s was dishevelled and smeared with dirt, as though he’d been crawling on the floor. His face was smeared with dirt and sweat that glittered in the fading sunlight.

Poulin’s sleek but crumpled black dress looked nothing like her military clothing. Nor did her pointed, high-heeled shoes, which would have been more at home on a dance floor than the dirt streets of Estérel.

She obviously must move in very different circles to the rest of the Legion.

Bairamov strode toward the officers as they stopped outside Pierre’s Place. Logan and Gallo followed. The politicos joined the crowd.

“What’s that?” Poulin said as she stopped beside them, pointing toward the east.

Logan turned, and followed her gaze.

Dazzling streaks of light raced across the sky, descending from high above the clouds at a steep angle to the surface. The ground vibrated beneath their feet a few seconds after the streaks touched down, and a thick brown cloud rose above the horizon from where they’d hit. More glowing streaks followed the first, until dozens were coming down every second.

“It must be the Marine LePen ,” he said.

Logan had seen orbital bombardments before, when the Navy demonstrated them back in training. The Marine LePen wasn’t a battleship, but it still carried cannon capable of causing total devastation on the ground.

They didn’t even need to fire explosive rounds. The metre-long metal rods fired magnetically from the cannon hammered into the ground at near-orbital velocity, and the impact alone caused far more damage than any non-nuclear explosives they could have packed into them.

As he watched, the impacts were tearing up the ground to the north-east of the town, throwing columns of dirt and debris a hundred metres into the air. Branches and even small trees tumbled in the middle of the dirt cloud, before falling back to earth. The angle of the flaming rounds changed as the ship passed over the target from horizon to horizon, and it would soon be out of range again. But little would be left in the target zone by then.

The ground began to shake, gently at first, but growing stronger as the shockwaves reached them through the dirt.

He sure wouldn’t want be be hiding out there right now, with flaming death from the sky coming his way, and nowhere to hide unless it was a dozen metres under the ground.

’Sanitizing’, the Navy bods had called it. They claimed there wouldn’t even be any bacteria left in the area after they were done with it.

That seemed hard to believe, but there sure wouldn’t be many insurgents walking around out there now, even if they were wearing combat suits. The rods would tear through a suit like it wasn’t even there, and turn the man inside into a spray of red mush.

As the Navy liaison said back in training, it’s a bad idea to bring a rifle to a starship fight.

“Mademoiselle,” Volkov said from his suit speakers. “You might not want to be standing out in the open like this. If they attack again…”

“I’m not going to be intimidated by these people.”

Volkov sighed. “As you will.”

“I was discussing the source of the insurgents’ fake IDs with the Governors when they attacked us.”

“Have you figured out who created them?”

“The account that created them is supposedly registered to a department official. But that ID is just as fake as the insurgents.”

“As I told you, mademoiselle,” Chaput said, “I will question every member of my staff tomorrow. I will find out who has been working with these people, and…”

“I have also been examining all the data we could extract from the insurgent tablet so far. Looking for names and places the insurgents mentioned. Anywhere or anyone who seemed important to them.”

“And what did you discover?”

“When I checked the all place names in the colony records, I discovered that every ore truck heading to the Saint Jean mine in the last three months has been attacked, and either turned back or been destroyed.”

Chaput waved his hand through the air. “Saint Jean is merely an inconvenience, mademoiselle. The mine is far from here, and of no great importance to the department. Keeping the route open to the mine is impractical with the number of men at our disposal.”

“If the colonists here believe it is impractical, our success in reopening the route will invigorate support for the Legion.”

“The mine has been shuttered for weeks, and the miners laid off. It will reopen when our current troubles are over.”

“We can’t let the insurgents think they’ve beaten us.”

Merle interrupted.

“We’re spread too thin already, mademoiselle. We have many other mines and villages to protect. And we can’t spare men while the insurgents attack us in our own backyard.”

“Do you remember the vids Governor Porcher showed us when we first arrived? Saint Jean is the mine that the truck was returning from when it was attacked. We need to clear that route, and prove we are in charge here. Not the insurgents.”

“Mademoiselle Poulin,” Porcher said. “There are much more important things for your men to be doing right now. Things that will have a much greater impact on the insurgents.”

“No. I insist. This will be done.”

“We could send a transport to fly the ore out,” Volkov said. “That would be faster and safer.”

“The insurgents have SAMs now,” Chaput said. “We have spare trucks, but we can’t afford to lose any transports.”

“Besides,” Poulin said, “that would show the insurgents we’re scared of them. We must send a truck.”

“You should just stop worrying about such an unimportant mine. There is nothing there we can’t get a dozen other places.”

“The insurgents clearly don’t think it’s unimportant, or they wouldn’t be trying so hard to prevent us from reaching it.”

She had a point, for once. Either there were some very eager insurgents in that area just looking for a fight, or there was something about the mine that made it important to them.

Either way, someone was going to have to fight their way up that road sooner or later. Poor bastards.

Volkov’s eyes steamed behind his visor for a few seconds, before he spoke over the platoon net. “Bairamov, I’ve got a little job for you.”

Logan’s breath came in short gasps as he trotted along the dirt road ahead of Bairamov. They’d been jogging for an hour, and their suits must have covered the best part of thirty kilometres already. A year ago, he’d never have imagined he could push his body for so long, but, so far, this patrol was no worse than their regular practise runs had been in training on LeBrun’s World. Their suits could have run even faster, but the ore truck wouldn’t be able to keep up with them if they had.

He looked to the left, through the gaps between the trees in the thick woods to the side of the road, then looked up and past them to the low hills beyond. Still no sign of anything that might be a threat. Just leaves, bushes and dirt.