A Heart of Ice (The Great War Book 4) by Ralph Kern

Author:Ralph Kern [Kern, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: military, military science fiction, Science Fiction
Publisher: Ralph Kern
Published: 2020-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

General Hest

Mordova – Low Orbit

“The quicker we wrap this up here, the sooner we push on to Veloka,” Hest snapped.

Indiscriminate bombing left a bad taste in her mouth. Oh, she knew that in interplanetary warfare the lines between civilian and military were often impossible to distinguish. Still, the thought of innocent men, women, and children—little more than the People’s worker drones—dying in this assault was distasteful.

But it wouldn’t stop her. The only way to save lives...Galton lives, at least, was going to be with hard, fast, and brutal strikes. Getting the situation mopped up as quickly as possible before the enemy could rally. Before they could turn their massive production capacity on the Hegemony.

And, in the long run, that would save lives among the People, too. Those who wouldn’t be worked to death or summarily executed, at least. No matter the Prime’s fantasies of taking these worlds lock, stock, and barrel for the Hegemony’s own use, even he must balk at the thought of wholesale genocide.

That’s what she was telling herself, anyway.

The gray of the moon rolled by beneath her ship and fleet. It appeared like every piece of its surface had been turned into monumental scale factories, or vast open pit mines. Great machines mindlessly chewing and chugging through the rock and the rubble, searching for metals and volatiles used in the People’s endless industry.

What could the Hegemony accomplish with this, she wondered, with its proper use bent to the disciplined goals of their cause? Yes, Marshal Galen had been correct to come here first.

Explosions flickered amid the hive-like structures and huge circular domes. Drop pods and mech disgorged from her transport ships in an unending rain as anti-aerospace fire licked up in yellow streamers, seeking to swat them, or the fighters and bombers racing over the surface.

Storm shuddered as she took another hit. They’d been under sporadic attack the whole way in. First dribs and drabs of enemy squadrons. Then the intensity increased as they’d closed on their target.

But the enemy fighters were no match for the Wolfs; the number of kills the Hegemony pilots were inflicting was horrendous. It was only the sheer weight of their foe’s numbers which allowed them to score any kills in return. But it damned well felt like for every fighter the Hegemony knocked out, there were five more launching or jumping in to replace it.

Looking down at the confusion of factories and facilities scrolling by below her, she could see why. The People didn’t do things by halves. They cared not for the sanctity or environment they operated in. They’d happily work this moon until it was nothing but a husk of useless dust in the vague shape of a sphere orbiting around a capital world which had, in turn, been reduced to a polluted wasteland.

“First wave is down,” Nowen called. He leaned on the edge of the holo-table, his intent eyes reflecting the dizzying array of colors depicting the status of the assault.

“Very good.” The drop pods and mechs

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