This is a fan translation of Dark Skies (Тёмныенебеса) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the fourth book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 19
The Battle
The ventilation shaft they descended was deep; without the UCRs, using just ropes, it would have been difficult even in their suits. But that was why robots existed, to make people's lives easier and, if necessary, to fight for them or alongside them, to help and protect them, and to sacrifice themselves for their masters. But sacrifices were still ahead of them, and, for now, one of the hemispheres slid into the shaft, glided down, and reported that the tunnel supports were strong and the air was breathable. Then sixteen UCRs transported Mark and his fighters into the tunnel, followed by the remaining robots, including a pair of mining machines, floodlights flared to life, and the squad, forming up into a somewhat long column, started moving.
Being a daydreamer had not stopped the geologist Cyrus Etterby from building things in a tough and reliable manner. The floor, the ceiling, and the walls of the horizontal passage were covered by eternal ceramics, reinforced with a metal framework, the tunnel, which was lost in the darkness, looked smooth, high, and wide, and no obstacles to their movement were visible. Mark sent a couple of the UCRs ahead, which rapidly crossed the distance, then commanded everyone to "saddle up", and, mere minutes later, the people and the robots found themselves in a large underground antechamber.
The "saddle up" command was a relic that had come to the Marine Corps from the ancient times. Naturally, even as a child, Mark had known that, on Earth and a number of colonies, there were horses, camels, and donkeys, and that people continued to ride them to this day, that even in the age of tanks and machineguns, there had been cavalry, mounted units with lances, sabers, and rifles. This meager knowledge had been expanded by the history course on wars and armament; as it turned out, horses were equipped with a harness with many parts, that people rode in saddles and rested their feet in stirrups. UCRs had neither saddles nor stirrups, and, for a marine, to "saddle up" meant to lock the suit to a robot's body using magnetic clamps. Usually, one of these mobile "riders" led a unit of four cybernetic warriors into battle, controlling them using his voice or via a remote control unit built into his suit.
The room, where Cyrus Etterby's would-be underground highway started, was spacious and empty; all the equipment had likely been taken to Northern or Nickel. A dark arch gaped in one of the walls with a date stamped at the top: 2154. Roy McCloskey, after checking the layout, took the mountain cybers there, and Mark soon heard the hissing of discharges and the smell of melting stone. Then the geologist came back and informed them that the task would take no more than half an hour and that, based on the angle of the passage, it would lead them to the spaceport.
"Excellent," Fyodor Timofeyev said. "It'll be easier to knock out the emitters. What do you think, commander?"
Mark nodded. Old man Fyodor, a retired marine and his assistant in the coming operation, addressed him with all due respect, like all the other veterans. However, Mark did not see himself as a commander, more like a coordinator. He did not feel his rank permitted him to command the people in his squad, especially since he had never had to be in command of anyone before. They themselves knew what needed to be done and how.
Dense black smoke came from under the arch, someone coughed, but then the suits' filters started working, clearing the air. McCloskey, lowering his helmet visor, headed into the passage. Three or four minutes later, the communicator blinked, and they heard his voice, "It's done, Mark. You guys can come in."
The floodlights went out as one, the people started moving and stretched out into a short line; Mark was in the lead. The walls of the tunnel cut by the cybers were still a crimson shade, but his suit was a reliable protection against the heat and the hot smoky air. The floor under his feet was uneven and rose sharply, but the movements barely required any effort, as the artificial muscles obediently contracted in time with his steps, the flexible armor only occasionally scratching the rock. Finally, Mark squeezed himself into the narrow crack and found himself in the open air.
It was the typical for the nightly T'har darkness, and he switched the helmet visor to infrared. About two hundred paces in front of him were the towers of Ho, thin and tall, not counting the squattier structures to the right, where the prisoners slept. Noting that, Mark switched his gaze to the ribbed structure, sticking out over the other towers like a hexagonal pencil. His rangefinder had already measured the distance; the Patriarch's dwelling was about a kilometer away, and it wasn't being protected by an auxiliary shield.
Turning, he looked over the deserted spaceport with wide rings of soil at the openings of the completed launch silos and the shapeless mounds where work was still ongoing. There were surprisingly many silos, both finished and started, about five or six hundred; he could approximate the size of the Dromi fleet based on their number. Some of the silos looked noticeably bigger than others; those wells were probably meant for dreadnoughts, which were as large as human frigates. A shield fence skirted the landing field from the south, west, and east, a line of pillars with emitter funnels; in the infrared visor, the space between them glowed with an even yellow light. Mark knew that, somewhere on the other side of the barrier, hidden by the darkness, awaited the combat and transport vehicles, hundreds of UCRs, and thousands of living fighters, which comprised their southern force, which was tasked with freeing the prisoners. Xenia and Maya are there, he thought. If everything went as planned, he would see them very soon, at dawn…
The people had already come out to the surface, and now the UCRs were diving out of the hole in the ground, one after another. Their flight was silent; soaring to a low altitude, they immediately lowered themselves to the rocky ground and froze like huge round turtles. Long cylinders of missiles stuck out on their humped backs.
"Group leaders to the commander!" Timofeyev's voice rang out. Bulky figures in suits stepped towards Mark: old man Fyodor himself, Bariega, Chania, and Patrick Fierri. Their faces were hidden behind their helmet visors, their movements were precise and quick. The rest of the fighters, having mounted their UCRs, were awaiting orders.
"Have you looked around?" Chania inquired in a booming voice. "Any adjustments?"
"No. There's not even a whisper… The enemy is sleeping, which means we're following the plan." Mark pointed towards the spaceport. "Two groups to the south, the rest will attack the tower."
"Then let's not delay," old man Fyodor spoke, shifted his faceplate, and looked into Mark's eyes. He was giving off pulses of confidence and calm, as if he was about to go hiking in a field or in a nearby forest, not head into battle. As a civilian, old Timofeyev worked at the local botanical station.
"Stoke the reactor, Lieutenant," he said, winking a parchment-like eyelid. "If we don't take off, then, at least, we'll stay warm."
Mark smiled, feeling his own tension leaving him. Then he looked at the timer and said, "Let's begin. Everyone to your groups."
They parted, and, suddenly, the darkness was pierced by quiet whispers and clanging of weapons, robots and human figures in combat suits started moving. Their force split into groups, three wings, twelve UCRs, and their riders each. Mark also headed to his hemisphere. Magnetic clamps connected him to the armored body, he shifted his fingers, and the robot, obeying the command from the remote control built into his glove, rose over the ground. The rocky surface started moving faster and faster below them, and, turning around, he saw two clumps of darkness move away, the wings led by Timofeyev and Chania. Bariega and Fierri's squads were flying alongside him towards the towers of Ho, which glowed like a blue flame on their faceplates.
To the left and right, tall structures appeared on round or multi-faceted pedestals, maybe hangars, maybe barracks, or maybe both. It seemed as if those prisms and cylinders were towering in a chaotic manner, without any rhyme or reason or even hint at a street; they stood like trees in a forest, covering the horizon and hiding the Patriarch's abode in the thicket of their giant trunks. But Mark, having memorized the map of Ho, knew that the central tower was visible in its entirety from several places, and that those positions were suitable for a missile launch. All he needed to do was to choose the ones that allowed them to perform a simultaneous strike from three directions and destroy the tower along with the Patriarch, his entourage, and command center.
It was unclear what would happen next. Humans and Dromi rarely engaged in hand-to-hand combat either in space or on planetary surfaces; this war, like all other clashes of galactic races, was being conducted using highly technological means, and the power of shipboard generators that supplied the weapons and the shields meant more than physical strength, mobility, and personal bravery. True, T'harans had defeated small Dromi squads, but they acted by setting up ambushes, performing surprise attacks and rapidly retreating. Mark's father had told him that human Defenders had had to go face to face with Dromi on occasion, but those were skirmishes, not battles; the only large-scale operation had been the battle for a space citadel near Lo'ona Aeo borders, and even then the deciding factors had been weapons and ships. But here, on T'har, something else was about to play out, very unlike battles in space; here, thousands of humans would fight thousands of Dromi, and they would use plasma throwers and laser cutters, machetes and entrenching tools, maybe even teeth and claws against fists. Even without their Patriarch, the Dromi were fierce foes, merciless and numerous. One of their clans had more fighters than T'har's entire population in peacetime.
Beriega's group turned left and vanished among the towers. A second later, Fierri turned right; both groups were supposed to find locations from which to strike. Mark and his two wingmen, Bale and Dao Bo, rounded a prism with twelve sides, a wide dark passage gaping in each of them, obviously meant for combat vehicles. Then the Patriarch's abode opened up before them from the ground to the topmost floors, a massive pillar about twenty meters in diameter and over a hundred in height. Everything was still quiet. Maybe the force barrier and the sky-tracking sentry devices were sufficient defenses to the Dromi, but Mark thought that this was not the true reason: these creatures behaved differently than dictated by human logic. They needed no sentinels, for the thought of the weak attacking the strong was incomprehensible to them, as well as the ideas of self-sacrifice, hate, and vengeance. In the mental fields of thousands upon thousands of Dromi, he did not sense worrying tension, only the calm of an anthill that had fallen asleep under the winter snow until the warm springtime.
"This is group one," Mark spoke, signaling for the others to stop. "I'm in position. Everyone report."
"This is group two," Timofeyev's calm voice sounded. "I'm at the spaceport, near the southwestern section of the force screen."
"Group three here," Zurab Chania boomed. "Standing at the southeastern section. I'm seeing our vehicles behind the emitter line."
"This is group four." It was Bariega. "In position, sir."
"This is group five," Fierri reported last. "In position."
"Fire on my command," Mark said, glancing at the line of a dozen robots. Currently, three of the groups, Bariaga's, Fierri's, and his own, were located at the apexes of a triangle, targeting the tower. Timofeyev and Chania had crossed the spaceport and stopped at its edge; Timofeyev was closer to the seashore, while Chania was two kilometers to the east. Their task was to knock down the emitter masts to create a passage for the combat vehicles and transport disks of the southern force, the one that would evacuate the prisoners. Two other large formations were concentrated to the north and east, as had been prescribed by Alferov's plan. Mark decided that he would try to break through to them and destroy a few emitters.
But not just yet. He had a different task at the moment.
"Attention, people, aim at your targets. Bale, Dao, are you ready?"
"Yes, sir."
He spread his fingers, and the missiles on top of the hemispheres began to move. Their pointed tips were facing the Patriarch's tower, but each projectile was supposed to hit a specific preprogrammed point; the salvo would strike along the entire height and on three directions, the powerful explosions would collapse the structure and send the Patriarch to the dark skies… An old but reliable technique, Mark thought; he clenched his fingers into a fist and spoke quietly, "Fire!"
It was impossible to track the rapid flight of the missiles; they seemed to vanish, melting away in the darkness, and, a moment later, the Patriarch's tower was covered in flames. It collapsed with a terrible noise, fountains of sparks showered everywhere, a giant flaming pillar pierced the sky, in which something shapeless dashed, spun, and burned, maybe debris and maybe green-skinned bodies. The air was filled with whistling; a hail of metallic and plastic particles pounded the robots' bodies, something glanced off Mark's suit and struck the ground. There was another glow to the south, but not as bright or tall, as that missile strike had affected a wider area.
The communication light blinked.
"The target has been hit," Timofeyev reported.
"Same here," Mark replied. "Here's your new task. Groups two and three will cover the southern assault force. Four and five will head north and cut down the masts of the force barrier. I'll take the eastern section. Good luck, peop—"
He didn't have time to finish; something clanged loudly in the dodecahedral prism behind them. Lights came on, and machines poured out of the passages, forming up into a wide crescent. A second later, clanging and grinding could be head from all directions: from the towers close to the Patriarch's abode, from the ones beyond them, and even the farthest ones that loomed over the ruins. The space around them suddenly became cramped, filling with the predatory movement of multiple emitter barrels and the dim gleaming of ceramic armor, as if an army of huge, deadly, and merciless bugs was attacking Mark. Beyond them, he could see smaller bugs, rows of armed Dromi. They were moving in combat formations, without any signs of panic or daze.
The robots' reaction was immediate: six of them turned to the avalanche coming from the dodecahedron, while the rest, opening their gunports, zigzagged to the ruins. Mark switched his robots to automatic, and Dao Bo and Bale must have had done the same; both of their UCR wings dashed forward, striking Dromi vehicles with laser beams. The three men in suits lifted their emitters and stepped back into the shadow of the nearest tower.
"We can't punch our way through east," Robert Bale said. "There's too many of them."
"I agree. Let's find out how the others are doing." Nodding, Mark activated his communication device. "Groups four and five, report."
"I've engaged the enemy," Bariega replied immediately. "They have ground vehicles, about a hundred and fifty of them."
"We're under attack," Fierri informed him. "I'm unable to get north. I've collapsed one of the towers and am now holding them off in the ruins."
"What's going on there, Mark?" It was Timofeyev. There was concern in his voice.
"The Dromi have woken up, Grandpa Fyodor, and are going after us. A frontal assault with a large force, and no trace of confusion. Maybe they haven't yet realized that the Patriarch is dead."
"I think that's clear enough," Dao Bo grumbled, looking at the pile of debris where the huge tower had once been.
The Patriarch is gone. So then who's in command?.. The smartest of the Big-Elders?.. Mark thought, but there was no time to think about that. He ordered Bariega and Fierri to punch through to the edge of Ho, take up positions in front of the towers with the prisoners, and protect them with everything they had. The help was near; Timofeyev had informed him that two columns of the southern force, hundreds of UCRs and thousands of people, were crossing the spaceport, and that aircraft wings were preparing to attack. Bolts of lightning were already flashing at the northern and eastern edges, accompanied by the rumbling of powerful emitters; squads of T'harans were punching through the force barrier.
Mark turned to Bale and Dao.
"We're retreating to the spaceport. Call your UCRs, people, no point fighting here. We'll try to get around the greenskins."
The robots surrounded the humans, and the small squad vanished in a side passage. They could hear the creaky Dromi voices, the humming of emitters, and the pounding of a great many feet behind them; the anthill was waking up, throwing out more and more enemy hordes out of its depth. But where was their leader? Who was sending them into battle?
Mark was pondering that, hiding behind a pile of rocks at the edge of the spaceport. To kill the Patriarch… The advice he had received was a good one, but something went wrong, some unknown factor had interfered in their careful plans, and it was too late to think about capturing Ho and crushing the greenskins. True, this had been an unpleasant surprise, but they managed to complete their primary goal and rescued the people captured by the Dromi. Now they had plenty of weapons, combat suits and vehicles, they had bases in Northern and Nickel and thousands of new fighters, the recent prisoners. They could fight! Fight the Dromi until not a trace was left of their invasion!
They hadn't lost anything, Mark thought, watching the tower outlines; between them, dark masses were moving like thunderclouds, preparing for an attack. Combat aircraft fought in the sky over Ho and the ruins of Western Port, over the spaceport and the entire coast, and, for now, the T'harans were winning; at the very least, transport disks were departing for Nickel without interference. A great fortune! They had to speed up the prisoner evacuation; if the Dromi had not lost their leader after all, then he would summon spaceships, and the pincers of a blockade would close over Ho. Mark figured that the deorbiting and atmospheric maneuvering would take three to four hours; which meant that the Dromi fleet would only show up at dawn; by that point, according to the plan of the Western HQ, Ho would have had become a smoking ruin. The plan had failed, but they were still capable of taking the prisoners away.
Stone barricades and breastwork debris stretched to the left and right of Mark over the launch silos. Humans, robots, and tanks with powerful emitters hid behind this defensive line, all the combat equipment and half of the personnel of the southern force. The rest, mostly teenagers and women, were busy with the prisoners, helping to load them up into the transport ships. This future army of T'har was not yet in any condition to fight; the hard labor and the unusual food had turned these people into walking skeletons. They couldn't fight, but, with typical T'haran stubbornness, still demanded weapons and a place in the defensive position.
The battle in the night sky did not let up for a moment. Aircraft covered the spaceport, but they were unable to support the ground forces, as the Dromi had the numerical advantage. It seemed as if a thunderstorm was rolling through the sky over Ho and the ocean coast; the darkness was pierced by laser and plasma discharges, and an occasional flaming craft fell down and burst into fiery pieces. This battle was not like a fight in space of the sort Mark was used to; those were silent, while here, the air hissed, pierced by bolts of lightning, explosions rumbled, and towers collapsed loudly when struck by vehicles falling from the sky. The ones used by T'harans were ancient and obsolete to Mark and could not compare to UFs, but they served their creators well and, if they died, then they did not die alone. The Dromi had a three-to-one advantage, and such a numerical ratio in battles with the greenskins was considered to be an incredible stroke of luck. Most likely, the northern and eastern squads had been able to blow up the equipment hangars; otherwise, the Dromi would have had greater numbers.
A transport disk flew over the spaceport and set down behind Mark. Several hundred haggard and tattered people were huddling in a small area, lit up by floodlights. They stood silently, surrounded by a thin line of figures in suits, and Mark thought that he could see Xenia among those helping and directing them. The iris at the bottom of the huge disk opened, a ramp extended, and people started coming up to the ship, moving quickly, but without indecent hastiness: first came boys and girls about fifteen or sixteen years old, followed by women and then men. Some of them were hobbling and tripping, others were being helped aboard, and yet others were lying on gravstretchers… The crowd was getting smaller, pouring into the transport's hatch, then the rings of the iris came together behind the final passenger, the disk lifted off into the air, and melted away in the dark sky. The figures in the suits were also gone. Had they left with the freed people?.. Hope so, Mark thought; dawn was approaching, and he was more and more tormented by worry for Maya and his sister.
Ahead, between the towers of Ho, the dark cloud came together and splashed out onto the plain as a long and even wave. The Dromi were making their third attack over the past two and a half hours. Death had already taken Bariega, Robert Bale, and two other veterans, while only thirty-eight UCRs were left of the original sixty. Transport ships were taking away both the living and the urns with the ashes of the dead to Nickel, for there wasn't much left after a plasma hit. Just ashes and the charred armor of a suit.
Squinting, Mark looked at the row of machines, and raised a heavy thrower. The UCRs repeated his gesture.
About forty minutes before dawn, when Mark, Grandpa Fyodor, Chania, and the surviving veterans were resting after the attack, Maya ran up to them. Her hair was disheveled, her jumpsuit was covered in dust, and there was a crimson scratch on her cheek. Mark's heart skipped a beat; he had thought that Maya and Xenia were already in Nickel. But if his love was here, then his sister was also somewhere nearby… She was stubborn! She would never leave her friend and wouldn't return to Nickel alone! It was more likely that T'har would leave its orbit!
"Knock-knock!" Maya squatted and tapped on his helmet visor.
He opened the faceplate.
"I thought you and Xenia had left. Why are you here?"
"Wherever there's Kay, there's Kaya, and their sister…" She leaned over and kissed Mark on the cheek. "Get up, commander! Nikolay Ilyich has arrived; he made sure that all the rescued prisoners have been sent to Nickel, and now he wants to talk to you."
"Grandpa Fyodor, I'm going to see Alferov," Mark said into the communicator and rose. He wanted to embrace Maya, touch her hair, but his suit and armored gloves were not suitable for that.
They headed to the transport disks, which were being loaded with amphibian tanks and groups of tired fighters. They were evacuating, Mark realized. Dawn was coming, barely enough time to send away the people and the equipment… He sighed and glanced at Maya, who was walking beside him. The sun would rise soon, and they, thank the Lords of Emptiness, would meet him in Nickel. They would meet him together… and Xenia would also be with them… All of them alive, but remembering those who had died this night…
He repeated their names and suddenly sensed that he did not want to leave this place. True, their raid on Ho had not been a defeat, but it had not been a victory either; they had taken away what was most precious, their people, while T'har's land was being given up again by leaving this coast, where the enemy had entrenched itself, and it was his fault. Well, maybe not fault, but definitely a miscalculation… Perhaps he had misunderstood that Dromi, had not figured out its message… perhaps the Patriarch had left his tower… either way, it was his mistake!
Alferov was pacing impatiently between two transport ships. He was wearing a suit but no helmet; there was shrapnel stuck in his shoulder pad, the breastplate on the right side was cracked and charred. Seeing Mark, he nodded and gestured Maya towards the ramp, "There, girl… you're expected…"
Xenia was standing by the ramp. Maya approached her, whispered something, but Mark couldn't hear her, as Alferov had pulled him to the side.
"The eastern and northern forces have retreated and are loading into disks. I left a screen in the hills… led by Ahn Shi-ah of the Eastern HQ; he'll hold them off until the ships take off. We'll also evacuate people and vehicles from here. But…"
"…it would be best to make sure," Mark finished.
Alferov rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Exactly, Lieutenant, exactly. Will you do it?"
"What are you leaving me?"
"All the intact UCRs, we've got a hundred and eighteen of them… a few Roaches, let's say six with pulse emitters… this is in case their fleet attacks… missiles, spare battery packs, supplies… and volunteers, of course. A hundred or so, all of them experienced. Not as quick on their feet as the young, though." His eyes faded. "Keep them safe, Lieutenant… if you're able…"
"I'll do my best," Mark said.
"What are you thinking?"
"If they push hard, we can get into the launch silos, they won't be able to smoke us out from there with their tubs. I have two digging cybers, we can cut a tunnel from the outermost silo to Etterby's underground passage and leave that way. I think we can hold them off for a day or two. Maybe three."
"That would be great. You need to distract them, make them think that we haven't left, that we're somewhere near Ho and are waiting for the right time to strike. Reaching Nickel," he nodded towards the transports, "will take only a few hours, but that's not enough. We need to… hmm… clean up, understand? To leave only stones on the surface, no other traces. The transports are too large, can't hide them in Nickel or Northern, we'll have to fly them back to the Arsenal… They can't be allowed to track us down, son."
"I can guarantee you a few days, elder," Mark said.
They spent the next few moments in silence, watching damaged robots with dented armor being dragged up the ramp. Then Nikolay Ilyich asked, "What's your take on the situation? I have to admit, they're fighting with devilish persistence… The Patriarch is gone, but that hasn't upset them much, everything's fine, no chaos… What do you think is the reason?"
Mark stared at the dusty boots of his suit.
"Maybe the Patriarch's wasn't even in that tower, elder. Maybe he'd left somewhere, to the Eastern Limit bases or into orbit to inspect the fleet. We blew up the tower, but it was empty… Based on the Dromi reaction, that's what must have happened."
"We can't rule that out… a simple unfortunate coincidence…" Alferov noted, furrowing his gray brows. "There are other possibilities, however. You and I, your instructors, and even the Creator Himself don't know everything about the Dromi; we humans were created by God, but they must have their own Jehovahs and Zeuses… Maybe there are some means of quickly replacing a Patriarch if he dies that we don't know. A high official of some kind, a favorite of his, a cardinal's shadow… one who is prepared to take charge and lead at any moment… It happened in our history, although not frequently."
Mark shrugged, "I haven't been told that, elder. The issue of a Patriarch's death hasn't been brought up as well."
"Why not?"
"They're thought to be unreachable. This is on the one hand, and on the other, destroying the supreme leaders of an alien race is outside the scope of the Fleet. It's a political not a military act. If you eliminate all the chiefs, then with whom do you negotiate? Who will sign the capitulation order? Who will restore order?"
"Sensible," Alferov agreed. "And that Dromi, the one you and the girls brought…" he threw a glance at Xenia and Maya, "this renegade of the Dromi people… could he be, as they used to say, a stool pigeon?"
"A what?" Mark frowned. "Sorry, elder, I don't understand."
"An agent provocateur," Nikolay Ilyich explained. "A person who deliberately provides false information."
"No. You see, it's impossible to lie during a mind-to-mind contact. Although, there is a possibility that I have misunderstood him. The differences between us are great."
"Differences… yes, differences… like between a toad and a monkey," Alferov muttered. "All right, let's assume that our Dromi is as pure as an angel, and that you have vouched for him. Now go, Lieutenant, take command. Remember, we'll hide a transport vessel in the woods by the exit from the tunnel, the one cut by Etterby. Go, but come back!"
Mark threw his hand up in a salute, took a step, but then turned back and said, "I have the underground passage to leave. But what about Ahn Shi-ah, elder? How is he going to leave?"
Alferov's face suddenly fell, and he seemed to grow fifty years older: his forehead was cut up by wrinkles, his cheeks were sunken, the skin under his eyes was sagging, and his back was bent. Without looking at Mark, he spoke, "Do your job, Lieutenant. Do your job and think of your fighters. Only Ahn Shi-ah knows how Ahn Shi-ah will leave…"
