“Saber Six, roger that. Hogs are in position.”
The MinSha infantry pressed against the hillside below, using rocks and scrub brush for cover. Their reinforcements walked forward with the skiffs bearing a heavy volume of fire. Most of it bounced harmlessly off the tanks. Novotny heard Hogshead telling his troops to stay low, behind the tanks.
PING!
PING!
Novotny’s eyes focused on the caution and warning display, but he didn’t see any significant damage from the impacts. The MinSha didn’t use ranging rounds—non-explosive warheads designed to ensure accurate firing solutions—but their skiffs did carry the equivalent of 90mm recoilless rifles. Against the central, hyper-composite armor plates of Novotny’s tank, they were ineffective. “Saber elements, target skiffs with anti-tank guns first.”
“Saber Six, Saber Three. Two at my one o’clock. Engaging now.”
No sooner had the words come over the radio, than Saber Three fired a series of high-velocity rounds that tore through the first and second MinSha skiffs. He pressed the transmit switch, “Target, Saber Three. Re-engage. Keep them down.”
The tank kept firing. One skiff caught fire and veered into a ditch where it mired, catching the surrounding scrub brush on fire. The smoke danced and wafted over the MinSha line, giving them an extra, albeit thin, layer of cover. The second MinSha skiff detonated in a spectacular fireball, scattering the MinSha infantry as they tried to concentrate their fire. On the far left of the external vision systems, he could see Avenger Six’s elements charging headlong into the MinSha line with devastating results. Without evidence of a counterattack, the MinSha appeared to retreat straight to the west, into the open valley. With the Spires protected by minefields and indirect fire, it was the only avenue they had.
Novotny watched them for several seconds. The breeze freshened and thinned the smoke from the fires, and he could see through it without the thermal imaging system. In the distance, at least three kilometers away, the Flatar deployed a regiment of Tortantulas and their riders.
The MinSha didn’t stand a chance.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-One
Lovell City
Victoria Bravo
Chinayl charged. Jessica thought she was ready, but the MinSha warrior’s inhuman speed surprised her. As she raised her pistol, Chinayl closed to less than three meters. Towering over Jessica, the MinSha’s reach negated the standoff distance Jessica tried to maintain even as she swung the pistol up from her right. She centered the barrel on Chinayl’s chest and squeezed the trigger twice, quickly. The MinSha’s armor deflected the rounds easily as Chinayl reared back with her right foreclaw and slashed forward. Time slowed in Jessica’s mind for the briefest moment. Chinayl lashed out with a large, curved knife resembling a machete. As the MinSha’s right arm swung in a wide arc toward her neck, Jessica was already moving. She lowered her head and dove to the left, passing safely underneath the wild swing before rolling quickly and coming up again with the pistol.
Jessica found Chinayl’s center of mass and squeezed off another three rounds to no effect. In a split second, she adjusted her aim to the MinSha’s nearly stationary, left foreclaw. She fired twice. The knife flew away in a spray of blue blood. Chinayl screamed in pain and lashed out with her right foreclaw. Jessica easily stepped out of the intended arc and shifted the barrel’s aim to the MinSha general’s face. She pulled the trigger, but Chinayl was already moving to her right. Jessica’s shot ripped through the air without hitting anything.
Chinayl reared up on her hind legs as Jessica re-centered the pistol with both hands on her thorax and fired three more times. The low-powered laser pistol barely damaged the MinSha’s armor, and Chinayl stomped forward slashing with the knife, this time faster than Jessica could react. Blinding, white-hot pain ripped the air from Jessica’s lungs.
“Gahhh!” Jessica stumbled backward, her left arm curled back toward her chest. Blood stained the normally dark blue coveralls. Distracted by the wound, Jessica didn’t see Chinayl’s bloodied, left foreclaw swipe forward. Her pistol flew across the ground, skidding to a stop several meters away. She looked back at the MinSha and everything froze. When she defeated the angry guard on Zeha, in the presence of Queen Taal, she saw a similar weakness in the MinSha’s armor. Between the major chest plates and the minor ones extending along the MinSha’s arms was an unprotected seam about ten centimeters long by four centimeters wide. It would be enough.
It had to be enough.
Jessica let her backward momentum lower her to the ground. Twisting, she drew the combat knife from her left boot with her right hand. She didn’t have time to spin it so the blade was down, the better way to strike an opponent. With the hilt firmly in her grip, Jessica came up with a right to left swing, driving the blade into Chinayl’s thorax right in the middle of the exposed seam.
Chinayl roared. “Aaaahhhhh! You filthy mud-ape!”
As Chinayl twisted away, she wrenched the knife from Jessica’s hand. Blue blood flew in a fine, misting arc as Chinayl stumbled away and collapsed to the ground. Jessica darted for her pistol and picked it up. As she looked up, two MinSha warriors approached from the northern side of the command center, their weapons at the ready.
Jessica searched for cover, but there wasn’t any. Shit!
The MinSha saw her and aimed their rifles at her in what seemed like slow motion. Jessica dropped to one knee, presenting what she hoped was a smaller target, and took aim. Lesson learned, she sighted the center of the left MinSha’s head and fired twice. The MinSha stumbled backward, fell into the dirt, and was still. She turned to the other MinSha and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Ah, fuck!
The MinSha centered its rifle on her. She drew in a quick, scared breath. She had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. As the MinSha aimed at her, a blur from her right charged into the MinSha’s abdomen with an unearthly howl. The Depik, its fur black as night except for the white patches on its feet, which shone in the morning light, tore into the exposed lower abdomen of the MinSha as it fired. The rounds passed harmlessly by Jessica. Unable to tear her eyes away, Jessica watched the MinSha flail at the small, feline-like alien. The Depik was a tornado of teeth and claws as it ripped the MinSha’s exposed carapace in dozens of places. Blue blood sprayed in all directions as the MinSha fell onto its back. The Depik scrambled up the MinSha’s chest and ripped its clawed paw across the MinSha’s throat.
“You unclean beast!” Jessica’s head snapped to the left. Chinayl was sitting in the dirt, a rifle propped across her legs, her one good foreclaw on the weapon. She fired once, and the Depik squealed and fell backward.
Without thinking, Jessica ran toward Chinayl, closing the distance as the MinSha tried to line up a killing shot on the wounded Depik. At full speed, Jessica jumped and kicked Chinayl viciously in the face. Chinayl dropped her weapon, and Jessica picked it up in one smooth motion. She pointed the barrel at Chinayl.
“Stay down, Chinayl.”
Chinayl chittered. “I will do no such thing. You’ll have to kill me, Peacemaker. If that’s not a problem for you.”
With a step forward, Jessica swung the awkward, oblong-shaped butt of the MinSha rifle into the side of Chinayl’s face. The general groaned and slumped to the ground. “I said stay the fuck down!”
Chinayl didn’t move. Jessica walked toward the Depik, moving her eyes between her target and the fallen MinSha. As she closed the distance, she heard the Depik mewling softly. When Jessica was two meters away, the Depik rolled over in a flash, its ears back. It was poised to pounce and raised a paw to strike. Its golden eyes on Jessica’s, the Depik stopped and slumped forward slightly. They stared at each other for several heartbeats. Seeing a Depik at close range, and surviving, was a rare occurrence. The beautiful, deadly alien darted for the command center at a full sprint.
“Wait!” Jessica called after it. “Wait! Please!”
The cat-like alien disappeared into the rubble of
a nearby building and was gone. Dammit.
Jessica turned back to Chinayl and gasped. The MinSha general was gone.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Cradling the MinSha rifle in her arms, Jessica jogged down the hill toward the MinSha dropship. Smoke and blowing dust obscured her vision as she moved. Her anxiety at losing Chinayl pushed her faster than she knew was safe, but she had to stop the MinSha from leaving the planet. Chinayl had to pay for her crimes.
The unmistakable sound of engines spooling for liftoff made Jessica sprint forward. As she ran, the dark shape of the MinSha vessel lifted into the sky. Jessica brought the rifle up to her shoulder and fired a half dozen laser bolts at the ship with no effect. The exterior weapons pylons, however, sighted her and oriented to fire. A small, deep crater to her right was the only cover available. As she dove for it, laser bolts sliced through the air behind her. The crater was deeper than she first thought, and she smacked headfirst into the opposite side and slid down a full two meters before coming to rest in the bottom of the depression.
Dirt sprayed down around her as the dropship continued to fire. A thunderous explosion from the surface shook the ground and sent a tiny avalanche of dirt and rocks into the bottom of the crater, covering her boots. Head down, Jessica cringed as a series of detonations sent rumbles through the air. Chinayl, even in retreat, was a cruel bitch. Jessica shook her head and waited for more detonations, but none came. An ethereal silence fell over the city as Chinayl made her escape. The dropship’s engines revved powerfully, and their sound receded. Chinayl had gotten away.
Jessica pulled herself up to a sitting position and punched the loose, brown soil of the crater’s wall in anger. She’d failed.
Godsdammit. I failed.
The MinSha in the valley below hadn’t fared well, but the dropship’s weapons gave them an advantage in the final throes of the battle. Chinayl wouldn’t hesitate to hit what she could, even if she wasn’t going to stop and assist her soldiers. A true leader never left a soldier behind. Jessica gasped in recognition. Jessica’s thoughts weren’t on the soldiers in the tanks or the CASPers.
Inara. Oh gods, what happened to Inara?
She wondered if Inara had been able to get to cover or to the evacuation routes before Chinayl fired her parting shots. What would she say to Inara’s father? She wondered if Watson and his men had died at the hands of Chinayl’s guards. If the MinSha took the field, it wouldn’t matter. They would all be dead, except for Tirr. The MinSha would take him back to their home planet and make an example of him. She’d failed her friend the most, and recognizing it was what finally brought tears to her eyes.
I failed.
She sniffed and rubbed her nose with her sleeve, wincing at the renewed pain in her arm. She’d almost forgotten about the cut and without the right attention, it could be serious. For a split second, she thought about sitting there and letting nature takes it course. If the wound didn’t close enough on its own, she could at least die with the notion she’d done so with the people she let down.
For fuck’s sake, Bulldog. You’ve only failed when you don’t stand up again.
So, get the fuck up!
There were several loud explosions in the distance, then silence. Jessica strained to hear anything above the gentle breeze flowing over and through the crater. After a few seconds, she heard something very faint, but very familiar. She’d heard it as a child when her family visited her grandmother near Athens one autumn weekend. The Georgia Bulldogs football team upset Notre Dame, the number one team in the country, on a last-minute interception and touchdown. Meters in the stadium recorded the crowd at more than 140 decibels. Three miles from the stadium, she’d heard the noise as clear as day.
Cheering. We’re cheering.
We won.
* * *
The command center and a dozen or so buildings in the immediate vicinity of Jessica’s final position were smoldering rubble. She wondered what else Chinayl destroyed on her way to orbit. The sound of cheering returned from the lower valley floor, and as much as she wanted to drop everything and find Inara, Jessica knew the possibility existed that she was the senior officer on the field. As a Peacemaker, if there were enemy prisoners of war, their care and treatment fell to Jessica. Head up and shoulders back, Jessica walked in the direction of the cheering, weaving through smoldering ruins with a heavy MinSha rifle in her hands. She shifted the weapon to a two-handed, barrel-down position and slowed her walk. Even if the main battle was over, a lone MinSha cut off from communications could still take her down.
Honor the threat, Bulldog.
Jessica took a deep breath. The smells of scorched concrete, burning rubber, and spent ammunition surrounded her in the wafting smoke from countless fires. She paid the various scents little attention despite the memories of Araf and Weqq they dredged up. She’d known death and destruction well as a mercenary, and it no longer scared her. More importantly, she realized any anxiety or euphoria she’d had for battle as a young merc had disappeared by her second year at Peacemaker U. Maturity was part of it, but there was something else. She’d changed for the better.
A thick blanket of smoke blew across her path, and she slowed to let it pass with the breeze. She heard the scuffle of footsteps. Jessica dropped to one knee, raised her rifle to a firing position, and called out. “Who goes there?”
“Peacemaker Francis?”
Watson.
“That you, Watson?”
“Yeah,” the man replied. She heard him distinctly say, “Weapons down. Friendly ahead.”
The bald man and four battered soldiers appeared through the smoke. He’d left with more than twenty men and four CASPers. Chinayl and her forces had chewed them up and spit them out. Watson smiled. “Thought you bought it when the dropship hammered the command center.”
Jessica holstered her pistol without looking and stepped forward. They shook hands. “I thought you bought it much earlier.”
Watson snorted. “So did I. We took out two of Chinayl’s guards, but she and the other two flanked my guys. They didn’t make it. Neither did the other two who tried to sneak up on Novotny’s tanks.”
There was a calm acceptance to his words. Jessica knew he was hurting and would deal with the loss in his own time. She jutted her chin toward the main battle area. “What happened?”
“The Flatar came in behind the MinSha and enveloped them. From what I hear, we defeated the MinSha and took around a hundred and fifty prisoners.” Watson tapped his earpiece. “Saber Six, locate my beacon and pull up here. I have Peacemaker Francis. We’ll take the surrender.”
Jessica tapped her own earpiece. Without Lucille’s connection, it took a second for the device to lock onto the active frequency. “...Roger, Command. I’m bringing their commander, well, the remaining officer in charge, to your position now. ETA is five mikes.”
Watson looked at Jessica. “Status of the evacuation?”
“We moved everyone the moment the dropship came in and your team left. I haven’t heard from them. I lost my connection to the command and control network.” Jessica took a deep breath. “But, your daughter...Inara. She came running out of the command center when you left. She tried to chase you into the city. I caught her and sent her back into the command center and...”
Watson squinted at her. Jessica licked her lips and smoothed back a lock of auburn hair from her face. The words wouldn’t come. “I haven’t been back to look for her and—”
“Daddy!”
Jessica saw Watson’s eyebrows rocket skyward. He raised his weapon, and Jessica instinctively stepped in front of him as she turned. The little girl, dark hair flying in the breeze, sprinted down the gentle slope in her bare feet. Running on her toes, she flashed over the ground toward them. Walking calmly behind her, no more than a few meters away, was the Depik.
“Weapons up!” Watson ordered. “Squad, prepare to—”
“No!” Jessica screamed. “It’s a friend.”
“A what?” Watson
asked. He stepped around Jessica and brought the rifle to his shoulder. “I’m taking the shot.”
Jessica turned around, slapped the barrel away, and moved in front of Watson. She pointed at the smaller man’s chest. “You’ll do no such thing. The Depik saved your daughter’s life.”
“How in the fuck do you know, Peacemaker?”
Jessica smiled. “The Depik followed me here from New Persia. I can’t explain it, but when I caught Inara, I sent her to the Depik. It obviously got her out of the command center and saved her life. Trust me, Watson. That Depik is a friend.”
Watson shook his head, and a slow smile spread across his dirty face. “Obviously. Look.”
Jessica turned to see Inara kneeling on the ground, stroking the Depik’s head like any human child would a kitten. The Depik didn’t look happy about the display of affection, but it sat there and allowed it from a Human child, stopping all of them cold. Jessica was aware her mouth was open.
“Daddy, look! He’s my friend! Can we keep him?” Inara bubbled. “He’s better than a real cat—he talks!”
Jessica covered a smile with a cough. The Depik, if possible, looked even more annoyed. Watson stepped forward, slung his weapon, and held his arms out. Inara came running and leapt into them. Jessica watched for a moment. Watson with his head buried in the little girl’s neck quietly sobbing in relief and the little girl’s bright, brown eyes flashing through the smoke and destruction. The Depik looked at Jessica and slow-blinked at her again.
On the breeze, Jessica heard the distinctive whine of a tank engine approaching. Atop the tank, she could see the commander holding a weapon on a MinSha. As they closed the distance, Jessica could see the MinSha was a young lieutenant that looked even more miserable than the Depik had. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the Depik sitting there, ears erect, watching them impassively.
The tank pulled within five meters and stopped. As the driver shut down the engine, Jessica walked forward. When Novotny pulled off his helmet, revealing a shit-eating grin, Jessica called out, “Lower your weapon, Novotny. Now.”
Stand or Fall (The Omega War Book 4) Page 35
