The Cost of Victory: Crimson Worlds II by Jay Allan

Author:Jay Allan [Allan, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: System 7 Publishing
Published: 2013-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

The Pendragon had been decelerating at 4g for almost a day when the ship went into freefall along with the rest of the first wave of transports. They’d been cleared for orbital insertion, and were on their final approach to Carson’s World.

They had been compelled to wait several days longer than expected before transiting into Epsilon Eridani. Admiral Compton had been suspicious when he had found no enemy force waiting to engage him, and he’d repeatedly postponed the transports’ entry while he scanned the entire area between the warp gate and the planet.

Compton had found debris from the battle that had been fought here several months before. The fortresses, which had been substantial defensive works, were gutted wrecks...dead hulks still orbiting the planet. It was clear that a major fight had occurred here; there were ruined, lifeless ships and debris scattered over a wide area.

The admiral had half a dozen ships out collecting and analyzing the debris. In the absence of any friendly or enemy forces, the wreckage was his best hope of reconstructing what had happened here. Meanwhile, though his gut was still flashing him a dire warning, he could think of no further reasons to delay the landings without violating his orders outright.

The Pendragon, carrying Erik Cain and his special action battalion, slid into orbit alongside her brethren, and launched a spread of planetary probes. The entire transport fleet was doing the same, sending small drones into the atmosphere of Carson’s World, scanning for enemy positions and troop concentrations.

The battle computers would analyze the data from a thousand probes and create a projection of enemy strength on the ground. As Erik knew from long and often bitter experience, it would be a relatively unreliable guide to what they would face. There were just too many places to hide troops on an entire planet, too many ways to interfere with scans. The heavy elements present on a mining world like Epsilon Eridani IV interfered with detection devices, making it even more difficult to create accurate estimates. Then-Colonel Holm had used this fact to devastating effect during the last ditch defense of Columbia a few years back, and Erik himself had been with the hidden forces that had surprised the CAC invaders.

Carson’s World no longer had a civilian population, so the Pendragon and other assault ships were able to conduct a heavy orbital bombardment, targeting troop concentrations identified by the probes. The enemy had built some hasty strongpoints, and the fleet blasted them hard, dropping small nuclear warheads on the toughest positions. Job one for the orbital assault was to clear out as much of the enemy’s air interdiction capability as possible so the landing craft and atmospheric fighters weren’t overwhelmed by fire from the ground. If ground units were also depleted or disordered, that was a bonus.

The bombardment lasted only a few hours, and then the guns and launchers of the assault ships fell silent. It was time for men and woman to take ground the old fashioned way, meter by meter.

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