by Isaac Stone
"Should be soon," Tank spoke. "Once that cannon's ready, all they have to do is use it to blow open the gate. Crazy way to protect a city, if you ask me. The only reason the Udies didn't pound it to rubble was the historical significance of the place. The first colonists built it centuries ago and the UDF wants it preserved."
I watched some refugee kids dig around in the trash for supplies and thought about Precious. Was she made by the entire system we fought to defend? If she'd been turned into a psychopath by her circumstances, what did that say about us? We valued the pack over everything else; it was the only way we could survive. I was taught from a small age that you pack determined who you were. We were better than those ground-pounders who only cared about money. Of course, we had to put up with them, but it was a small price to pay if we wanted the Order to survive.
And then maybe the images I had from Precious were part of my own imagination. It was no secret that I wanted her. I wasn't the only one who wanted to keep her on the ship. Taking human trophies was an old custom, one that had fallen somewhat out of favor with Starwing, though I'd heard of others who still kept to that tradition. Perhaps Captain had it in her mind to revive some of the old ways.
"I think it’s about to happen," Tank spoke to me. He pointed to a group near the cannon.
I could see several UDF officers confer with some men from the Orders landing parties. They were in the process of comparing notes or deciding on when the right time would be for the assault. It didn’t take a genius to realize it would be soon.
I turned back and looked at my crew, busy talking to Tank's. "Get ready," I told them in a low voice. "It's almost go time." They picked themselves off the ground and checked to ensure their rifles were loaded.
15
The order for the final assault came at last.
I turned and watched a shell from the cannon explode on the doors that blocked the entrance to the gateway. The first shell rocked the ground and split the gates in half. The cannon fired again and the second shell reduced the doors to wood splinters. A third shell was fired for effect and exploded inside the city.
"Alpha Lance!" Tank shouted. "Let's go!"
We ran into the fight, the smoke still clearing where the shell exploded. I'd counted three shells and three explosions, so no fear about unexploded ordinance.
Besides, I had more important things to worry about.
Bullets whizzed past our heads as we ran into the gate. The snipers weren't able to hit us on the run, as they were busy dodging the shots from our sharpshooters on the ground. As I reached the gate, I looked to the left and watched a tall Amazon pop up from the ground and nail a sniper on top of the gate. He hit the ground on the other side as we raced past.
I could feel the strap of my combat helmet tight under my chin as we thundered down the street. Tank and my crew had made it inside first, but I could hear the boots of the others behind me. Behind them came the war cries of the Horde from the Great Khan. It was a scene of complete madness, driven only by our desire to stay alive and to get into the government palace first.
We only had a vague idea what would be found at that government place, but it didn't slow us down. I ran with my rifle tight to my chest. Up ahead I could see some people trying to get into a formation.
It was a group of Roka.
I watched Tank plow through them before they could raise their guns. He whipped his rifle up and plugged two to the right side of him, then turned around and shot a sniper on top of a building. The man was a human killing machine.
I was right behind him. The second I crossed the Roka lines, I had my rifle up too. I stopped and fired it directly at a Roka with a machine pistol and expected him to fall down in a pool of blood.
It didn't happen. The rifle decided to fail at that moment, in spite of all the maintenance I'd done on it.
The machine pistol operator never had a second chance to shoot me. Orlando was on top of him in seconds. The Roka went down when Orlando pulled out his short heat-sword from the scabbard we wore on our utility belts. He sliced the Roka's throat open even as he used his other hand to point his rifle at another and drop him with several tight bursts of fire. The Roka went down in a shower of red.
We were directly in front of the government palace. It was a scene of mass fighting as the final Roka troops and their allies fought to keep us from taking it. I had my heat-sword out now and used it kill a Roka who tried to take out Tank from the rear.
"Thanks buddy," he called out to me, then fired three shots at something in the second story of the government palace.
I saw a Roka dead on the ground at the main entrance to the palace and made for it. My crew was right behind me. Tank advanced with us. Somehow, none of us received a wound, even if our stout armor turned away plenty of enemy shots. The UDF Tactical Marines weren't so lucky. I saw plenty of their bodies on the ground. The medics would be in position soon, but we had to first take the palace.
It was a bloody fight indeed. Every floor had several squads of Roka on it that needed to be dug out. At one point, I leaped over a barricade of furniture to find myself facing three Roka militants, each with handguns. I'd caught them by surprise and managed to slice them up with the heat-sword before they could pull a trigger.
"It's clear!" I yelled at the men behind me and pushed the furniture out of the way.
Our final goal was the main assembly room, built to hold the parliament back before the troubles started.
We worked our way down the hall, checking each room as we went along. The firing from hostiles had lessened now that we'd reached our objective. There was still a lot of it going on outside. I could hear the gunfire and smell the burnt odor of combustant as it whiffed in through broken windows. Our final goal was still the assembly room.
Medoro almost took a bullet when a Roka militant ran out in the hall and fired wild at us. He managed to return fire a lot better than his opponent did and the man fell to the ground. He didn't move.
"Still wish we could use lasers down here," he spoke to me. "We could've burnt our way into this place in minutes."
"Hold her steady," Tank replied. "We need to check out these side rooms first." Downstairs I could hear the sound of breaking glass and the whoops of the Hordesmen poured into the building.
"It shouldn't be much longer," I told Orlando and Tran. "Don't do anything stupid and we can be home tonight with a soft woman between hard sheets. Or is it a hard woman and soft sheets, I can't remember." They snickered behind me.
"Cover me," Tank demanded as he walked over to a door to the one side. The plate over it read "Education Ministry", but we had no idea what was behind that door.
"This is Tancred of the Hard Rain pack!" he yelled at the door. "I know someone is inside there! You can come out peacefully, or I can toss a grenade in there." He stepped back a few paces.
"I didn't think they'd issued us grenades," Medoro whispered into my ear.
"How do they know what we've got out here?" I replied to him in a low tone. He nodded in comprehension.
We dropped to the ground and aimed our rifles at the door.
The door creaked open slow and a line of men began to emerge, each with their hands held high. Most were older men who didn't appear to be much of a threat. One looked very familiar.
"So what do we have here?" Tank spoke as the men emerged in a line. "A board of directors meeting? Aleister, Marcus, get in there and see what's left. If anything moves, shoot it."
We captured a whole slate of turncoat politicians and corporate types that day. They'd been at the government palace when we took the city. Somehow, the Roka convinced them it would be to their advantage to throw their lot in with the insurgents on their campaign through the known universe. These were the small fish, later in the day we pulled out the former planetary governor from his hiding spot below the assembly room.
It turned out they'd fleeced the planet of most of its wealth during this rebellion. While the Roka terrorized the population, this scu
m had transferred much of the planet's wealth to foreign accounts. Later, we would uncover spools of documents that showed how they manage to pull it off while the battle raged across the Yon sector.
But we'd done our job for the day. I cuffed the entire line and turned them over to the UDF Tactical Marines for processing.
Five minutes later, we burst into the assembly hall to find it vacant. Papers and memos scattered over the floor.
Tank walked around and looked it over. We joined him and tried to find anyone in hiding. Other than the governor who we pulled out of a cubby when someone heard a cough, they'd all fled.
"This doesn't surprise me," I spoke as we had one final look at the abandoned room with its benches for all the Tamara delegates to sit. "It's always the vermin who flee first when the rat catcher shows up."
We made our way out of the building; past Hordesmen were busy tearing apart furniture in their quest for anything of value they could take back. We left the building and nodded at several Amazons who stood watch over the main entrance. The sound of gunfire in the distance died down as the day drew to a close.
"Here's your chance," I spoke to Orlando as we stopped on the steps, waiting for Tank and his men to catch up to us. They were detained by a junior UDF Naval officer who had some questions he wanted to ask.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"The Amazons," I told him. "Their guarding the entrance. They don't seem too busy. Why don't you go up and ask how they make new Amazons?"
He grinned at me and walked over to the nearest Amazon guard. She was not a big woman, no more than average height. I did notice a scar across one cheek as he approached her, which made me wonder if sending him there was such a good idea.
I couldn't see what happened. His back was to me and he froze. He stood there for a few minutes, then turned around and marched back.
"So," I spoke to him as I spied Tank and his crew headed down the stairs, "what did she say to you?"
"She wanted to know if I was offering my seed to her," he said, a confused look on his face. "She told me her name, got mine, and said she liked the way I fought with the others. She told me if this was an offer, she would accept, but the donation couldn't take place until she'd found the right astrological time."
"And what did you say?"
"I told her she could have all she wanted," he smiled. "Providing the captain's approval."
"Which you will never get," I replied.
"Man's gotta dream," he responded.
By now, Tank was at the bottom of the stairs. We headed back in the direction of the landing field.
We were back in our FAS an hour later. I didn't want to call up the ship, as there was too much to do prior to launch. After I'd exchange my combat armor for the dramatically more comfortable flight suit, I made my way to the conning tower and contacted in the mothership.
It was Ely on the line again. "Captain says to tell you good job," she told me. "You are expected up here by shift change and, let's see, that means you will be with, well what do you know, me!" I heard her laugh over that one.
"I'm looking forward to it," I transmitted as the screens snapped to life. One showed me the crew strapped in and ready. Another the atmospheric conditions. We still had plenty of fuel to reach the Hard Rain.
"How's everything else on the ship?" I asked her. "We haven't been down here that long; I don’t think much will have changed."
"Nope. Shelly is a bit pissed he and his crew didn't get in on the action. Captain promised him next time. I'd be pissed as well. Probably explains why she assigned him to her place tonight."
"I never will understand Captain's thought process."
"I'm sure she has her reasons. Your responsibility is still with Latasha. I thought she'd send her to be someone else's trouble, but she has Precious with her all the time."
That isn't necessarily a good thing, I thought. Those eyes of hers still made me shiver. I'd faced down raiders, guerrillas and pirates, but that small woman was scarier than any of them. And, naturally, I couldn't tell anyone about her without them thinking I was nuts. It was one thing to have sensations about attack patterns, another to hear mental words and see pictures sent by someone who liked to cut people up and watch them die.
"Call coming in from our side," I told her. "We'll see you in an hour or so."
I switched the transmitter to the local signal and acknowledged. "Corwin of Hard Rain here," I spoke. "Are we clear for launch?"
This is ground control," the voice said to me. "You are cleared the moment your friend leaves."
"Thanks," I told her. "We'll look forward to getting back up there." I clicked the audio back to internal.
"Orlando," I spoke into the microphone. "Ground Control says we are to leave right after Tank."
"Got it, “he acknowledged. "There he goes. I'm about to light the torch in five, four, three, two..."
I felt the gravity forces pull back at me as the FRS roared into space behind Tank's crew. I've always hated launches from Earth gravity planets. They take too much fuel and you can't do too much while the ship heads toward escape velocity. I watched the surface of Tamara fall away from one screen and Tamara Prime with it. The city and planet was no longer my concern.
Once again, I felt the strange sensation of the outsider intelligence probe my mind. It backed off quick when it realized I knew it was there. Too bad, I would've liked to trace its origin.
I needed to talk with Captain about the probe. I needed to talk with Captain about what I saw inside Precious's mind. I needed to talk with Captain about a lot of things.
Soon, we'd reached escape velocity and the sense of weightlessness returned to the ship. I eased out of my straps and looked at the screens. Every crewmember was in a relaxed state, a bit surprising after what we'd endured. I turned and looked at the image of the Hard Rain as she grew large in the screen that focused on the mothership. Soon, we would be home and ready to tackle whatever the Udies wanted. I prayed we'd be sent back to the frontier and only have to worry about the occasional raider or smugglers. This ground combat was not something we liked to do, even if we'd been the first wave inside the city and government palace.
We let Tank land his FAS first in the hanger and went in only after his was solid on the hanger floor. Once Orlando had us in our spot, I watched the twin hanger doors swing shut. A few minutes later, I heard the interior air scrubbers began to cycle through their process. A few minutes later, I watched the icons dedicated to the outside of the FAS turn green. It was safe to leave.
"Time to go, boys," I called down to the flight center. I heard them unsnap their suit armor and prepare to leave.
We managed to get out into the ready room without any problems. By the time the four of us were on our way through the airlock, Tank's crew was already inside the main ship.
Greeting us in the ready room was our assignments for the night. It's a custom that the returning FAS be greeted by whoever the crew is assigned. It's the one part of the mission I've always enjoyed, the return. No matter what happened you know there will be someone waiting for you.
This time Precious stood behind Ely as I entered the room. As per tradition, the first man back took his assignment and left the ready room with her. By the time I arrived to face Ely, it was just her and I. And Precious.
"Captain thought you should take charge of your responsibility the moment you entered the ship," she told me. "Latasha gave me the remote. She seems anxious to have you back.
A lot of damn good it will do you if she decides to ignore it, I thought.
I looked at those eyes and knew my former trip into her mind was no hallucination.
I embraced Ely, and then placed my arm around her.
Precious stepped between us. She looked up at me with her big brown eyes. I could see that Ely was fooled by her, although I wasn't.
Before I could say another word, Precious had leaped off the ground and wrapped her legs around my waist. I felt her moist lips on mine. Then her tong
ue slid in my mouth.
I want you now, the eyes said to me. I want to feel our baby inside of me. Growing, becoming stronger every day. I've hungered for you every night that I've watched you with those other women. And I'll watch you tonight, so I can learn what makes you excited.
I pushed her away and sat Precious down on the ground. "That's enough," I warned her. "You don't have to come on so strong."
She glared back.
"I needed to see you before you began your assignment," a voice said to me. I turned around to face Captain Sophia.
"I've been on a line to the Grand Marshal," she told us. "There's been some kind of strange activity in another frontier sector. A deep space probe picked up several unknown ships headed into Udie territory. We've never seen the make of them before. The Grand Marshal wants us to be the ship sent in to check them out. Guess this is what we get for having such a great record."
"What about her?" Ely pointed at Precious.
"She comes with us," Captain answered. "Too much to do and not enough time to place her before we leave. I thought I found another Order ship interested in her, but they'll have to wait."
Captain looked Precious over and checked her skin tone, hair condition and teeth. It was a bit dehumanizing, but she didn't have much time to make a decision.
"Or maybe I'll just keep her on board," she spoke. "It's always easier to get a male recruit than the woman version. I wish we knew more about her. No way could she pledge into the pack if she can't repeat an oath."
"I speak better," she told Captain.
"What?" Captain exclaimed. "You've made some real progress."
With that the captain turned and left the three of us alone on the hangar deck.
"Guess the three of us will be together tonight," Ely spoke as we walked away.
In ways you can't imagine, said a voice in my head.
I saw Precious flash me her teeth.
