I took up position on another disabled vehicle as more enemy troops were piled in the transport. Yasu stayed with me. I watched Yasu shoot with growing jealousy. Shit, she could shoot now too! At least I’m taller still, I consoled myself as the last soldier was placed in the back of the transport.
“All right, brace the truck. Seventh and eighth team, you’re on the sides. Fire and give back sensor data.” I slung my rifle as I put my hands against the armored transport’s side. Hands slammed into it on either side of me.
“Three, two, one, PUSH!” I said as the multi-ton truck shifted the armor, bending from our applied force.
“Left, right, left,” I said rhythmically. As we pushed the truck forward, I saw the sensor read back from the teams on either side as they fired away at the force that was staying back with their vehicles outside of the determined perimeter.
“General, cease fire. We’re going to return your injured people to you. We don’t have the facilities to heal them.”
“Why should we believe you? We saw you shooting them before you put them into the truck. It’s filled with nothing but dead.”
“Have we lied thus far?”
“You knowing that word means that you have the ability to speak falsely.”
He did have me there.
“These men’s deaths will be on your conscience.”
“No, they will be in yours. You attacked us.”
I thought of some colorful words. “No, you entered our pre-determined cordon.”
“In an attempt to take back our power plant!”
I sighed, trying to take another path. “The people we’ve shot, what happened to them? Did they all die?”
“No, most where unconscious for a day. Your weapons are weak against us,” he boasted.
“As you should’ve seen with this transport, we can kill you easily. We don’t want to. This fucking dick measuring contest isn’t doing anything. We will leave you the transport; we’ll even show you that they’re alive. If your people shoot, they will be stopped, using deadly force if necessary. If you want your people back, come to a hundred meters past your destroyed trucks.”
“All right, damn it. You have ten minutes of cease-fire.” He growled, as unhappy with the situation as I was. But I needed to build trust between us and the Chaleelians. I didn’t know how long we’d be on planet, and in the future I might need their help.
The fire slowed and then stopped as I heard the telltale loud voices of people passing orders. “All right, second team, you’re with me.”
I turned onto a side channel with Yasu. “Keep them alive if I die.”
“How do you expect them to follow me?”
“Look like you know what the hell you’re doing, don’t show fear, and once you make a decision, don’t waver.”
“It’s easy for you, seeing as you’ve got actual authority and know what you’re doing, unlike me!” she said pointedly.
“I have no clue half the time what’s going on and the only authority I have is that I look like I have a plan.”
“Do you?”
“I always do.” I grinned. I saw her face relax even after what I’d said and the fact it was a complete lie. All I knew was that I didn’t want these aliens going back to Earth and bombing it. Personally, I didn’t care all that much for Earth but as MT had become my family, their actual families—brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers—had also become part of my family. I didn’t want them to die, or the friends and family of the people who called me commander.
Leadership meant that I had to make the decisions that would keep us alive and on mission, no matter the sacrifices. I had to make the hard decisions. Hopefully this one would bring mine and this planet’s people together in some kind of trust. If not, well, as my new saying went: I wouldn’t be around to care.
“Coming past seventh—both you and eighth keep your eyes out. The rest of you, be ready to pull back. Listen to your leader. Yasu’s taking over for me.” I drew my plasma sword, cutting open the transport.
“Those coming with me, put the critically wounded on your backs.”
We did so rapidly, our magnetic weapon clamps holding onto the enemy soldiers’ armor. Our servos’ noise became more pronounced as we moved.
“Everyone good?” They greened up on my HUD as I tapped the seventh teammates; they lowered their weapons to let us pass. I took the top of the arrowhead formation with the other two separating to other sides of me, facing outward. I saw a corresponding team come out behind the grouping of mostly disabled armored vehicles. Two of them had gravity carts; the other six eyed us warily. The people with gravity carts helped us load up the wounded as they began talking into communicators and rushing the carts to the rear to get aid.
“All right, there’s more in the vehicle. I hope me and mine can create a trust between our people,” I said as half of us who had brought the casualties continued to face them. The others connected tethers to us so we were never fully turned away from the enemy force. We kept our arms low but close to our weapons as we slowly walked backward. I grinned, appreciating the teamwork my people showed.
“Die, you cur!” one said, wielding a blade that glinted in the planet’s harsh sunlight as they drove it into the team member beside me with incredible force; the other five all brandished similar weapons.
A mask of rage fell across my face as, without thinking, my fist went through the first attacker’s head. With a press of a button in my Mecha, I cut the tether to me and the guider.
Rage filled me when I saw the maniacal smiles as the attacking natives laughed. They attacked another one of the people who had unquestioningly followed my order. One of tens of thousands who had been abducted from their family and all that they knew and here this creature was going to kill them.
Something primal in me let go as I put my Mecha to full power. It hummed with god-like strength.
I roared in incoherent rage. My Mecha amplified it and added in terrifying subsonic. It made the attackers pause. I charged toward them, my fist impaling one. I threw them off, shaking my fist. A kick launched another fifteen feet into an armored car, crumpling the windshield. Then my blade was in my hand as the attackers came at me. With a cross cut, I killed two, the last putting something into my Mecha’s forearm. It registered limited movement on my HUD as I grabbed his fist, crushing his hand as I drew him in. Pain and fear overpowered everything else. I shut my visor with a snap.
“Tell General Carsickle this,” I said, my voice a deadly whisper.
He nodded, gulping, his eyes wide with pain.
“The perimeter is doubled; anyone who crosses it without my permission will be killed. No more stun rounds. He has to earn my trust or I will wipe this planet clean.”
It was at that point I found out they had similar waste expending systems as humans as a stain appeared on his pants.
With that, I threw him five or ten feet. I turned away toward my people, who scanned the armored vehicles that had come to meet us, nervous, weapons aimed at us.
I used my plasmid sword to cut off the end of what was little more than a shiv stuck in my arm. I sheathed my plasmid sword and grabbed my rifle without looking at the natives, as if I didn’t have a care in the world of their weapons.
“You have ten minutes—you better get running,” I growled as I unloaded my stun rounds, whipping them through an armored windshield and loading my other magazine. I joined the rest of the force, which had gone with me behind the transport.
“Sitrep,” I asked, changing to my people’s channel.
“One critical, needs immediate medical chair—the Hellfire is only just keeping him alive. Three light wounded,” Yasu said, coming near me. “Make that four.”
My damaged arm flinched when I saw the glinting sword still in it.
“Okay everyone, we’re withdrawing. Third squad helps second squad back to the power plant. Run, full power.” Without a word, third grabbed the injured man with a bloody gash in his Mecha, running for all they had
as his partner followed behind. A Mecha being used at full power was a frightening sight: they didn’t move faster as much as they blurred.
“Fire support, full covering fire. One critical, four light. Get those Chaleelians off my front porch.”
“Understood. We’ll bring the pain.” The slight background noise of gunfire turned into a storm as rounds flew around the truck.
“That’s our cue, people. Zigzag.”
We ran full out. It was exhilarating to finally open up the Mecha, but my mind was other places.
“First-aid responders, prepare the med bay in the shuttle, one critically wounded. Third team, report on status.”
“This is third. Wound to the main body cavity, stab wound and slash through Mecha armor. Weapon unknown at this point. Heavy bleeding. I don’t know what else to say,” they said desperately.
“Weapon was a mono-blade,” I supplied, remembering the glinting blade from one of the slideshows Taleel had shown us back on the training sphere; it felt as if it had been months ago and I’d only been in two actions.
“All right, this is the med team. Are they breathing, conscious?”
“I can’t tell and, no, I don’t think so.”
“Male, female?”
“Male.”
“All right, bring them straight to the shuttle. Get someone to quick release their front so we can get him in faster and put pressure on the wound.”
The Mecha had automated tourniquets but with an open, bleeding wound in the person’s center mass, there wasn’t anywhere to stop the blood coming from a wound. Also, because every wound was different, it meant that if the center piece of the chest applied pressure, it could be too much or too little for the wound.
The other second team member was ripping off the armor as fast as the catches would allow, sometimes breaking them in their frustration, tossing them away and their own gauntlets as they pressed the wounds together. The first aiders descended on the wounded man as he was hauled to the shuttle.
The reserve squad and I reached the power plant as they were already halfway into the shuttle. I could see them doing CPR outside before hurriedly taking them into the shuttle and the medical chair that was built into it.
I didn’t stop moving as I jumped onto the wall of the power plant, running up it to the roof where Turek and the support leader were.
“Good work, Salchar. I’m impressed.” Turek studied me as the gunner commander looked a little green.
I looked at myself, still covered in the blood and parts of the natives. I must’ve made an intimidating image, covered in blood and gore in my Mecha, a broken sword sticking out of my arm and a grim expression on my face. I didn’t reply as I saw a plume of dust from vehicles moving away, towing the transport filled with wounded.
“You should get that looked at.” Turek pointed to the hilt still in my arm.
“Yes, Officer Turek,” I said, still scanning the plumes. I wanted to see the natives gone first.
A medic who had been doing CPR climbed onto the roof. I looked at her questioningly; she simply shook her head. I’d hoped the near magical medical machines could put the man back together, but even miracle machines don’t work how we want them to all the time.
I slumped in my armor, feeling guilty and dejected. My anger toward the natives turned toward me. Why did I need to go out there and return their wounded? Screw them. Their trust wasn’t worth one of my men—nothing. I shook.
“All right, get your assault team rested and fed. Rotate people around. I’ll be in the command center if you need any help.” Turek patted me before going as I issued orders.
“Perimeter and sharpshooters, twenty-five percent. Gun crews, rotate off. Reserve units, up top at fifty percent. I want a squad ready at all times, suited and ready to go within seconds. Another two at least awake but can take off some of their Mecha. The rest, you’re on free time. Every four hours, we’ll rotate the ready squad into the perimeter defenses and gun crews. One of the half armored squads takes their place and another squad roused from sleep or their activities are partially armored up.
“Fourth squad on reaction duty; ninth and tenth half armored. Squad heads form up on me in the main entrance to sort through rotation,.” My voice was as numb and dead as I felt inside. Once I’d covered my bases, I walked off the edge of the building, people’s voices of alarm dull against my ears. I hit the ground rolling and walked into the power station, finding a secluded room.
As I sat, reality hit me like a wave. I’d known on a level that this was real, but it hadn’t sunk in that this wasn’t a tournament. People didn’t come back; they died. I pulled off my helmet, throwing it in the corner of the room angrily. Yasu walked in as I looked at her. I didn’t care at this point. I looked at my hands.
I kept going back to the point where I had told the Chaleelians how I would clear the entire planet for my people. It wasn’t until I said the words that I realized it was true. Why did I want to save them all? Was I an idiot? I should’ve just kept to saving MT and running away. Yet I couldn’t. The faces of the commandos around me filled my mind: the faces of George, Hoi, Rick, Abella, Marleen. As soon as I had started calling myself Salchar and acting as if I knew something, I had accepted the responsibility of getting them home. Yet, it was one thing saying it and another realizing the truth behind it.
I heard the door shut as I continued looking at my hands, lost in my crushing world of responsibilities. I’m still twenty! Couldn’t they just leave me alone!
“This won’t do,” she said after five minutes.
I looked up in shock, thinking she’d left when the door had closed.
She hoisted me out of my seat, pushing me into the wall so that her face was inches from mine.
“Goddamn it, James, you’re these people’s leader. You don’t have time to mope over a loss; we’re still in enemy territory. They need someone to look up to. Before, it’s always been you. They need you again.”
“They need me? They’ll do just fine by themselves; all I’ve done is get them killed!” I snarled back.
“No, what you’ve done is kept us human, given us direction, trained us so that we can survive, and you’re working to pay back our captors in spades. You’re the man with the plan; the man who’ll get us home.”
She looked at me, her eyes searching as I looked away. The hope in her eyes was unbearable; I felt like putting my fist through the wall. My nemesis was looking to me for guidance. Whatever would happen next?
“It’s because of me that he died,” I said quietly. New grief rolled over me as I stated what I truly felt.
She acted as if she’d been shot before coming closer to my face. “Don’t be an idiot, James—use your brain. The aliens who abducted us and forced us to fight are to blame for all of this.”
“You don’t understand.” My eyes bore into hers. “I was the one who gave the orders. He was following me, not the damned aliens. In my gesture of trying to get some common ground with the natives, he did as I asked. I, Commander damned Salchar.” I pushed her away with a swipe of my arm as I slumped back into the chair I’d been sitting in, bending it with the Mecha’s weight.
“More will die as well,” she said from behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder.
I shook it off and stared at the floor.
“Yes, people will blame you for their deaths, but without you, do you think we’ll lose more or less?” she continued.
“Get someone else to do it. Henry’s great with soldiers.”
“Yes, he is, but there’s too much going on for him to take over. And he doesn’t want to—too damned loyal. Even though he acts like a dolt at times, he’s smart and he knows that you can get us out of this mess. Did you realize that he, and all of the leaders he chose, fought us when we were training?”
“No. Isn’t that a bad thing? Won’t they have a grudge?” I argued, glancing at Yasu.
“He did that so that all of them know, through experience, just how far you’re willing to go for y
our people and how you still treat others with respect. That they can place trust in the fact that you’ll look out for everyone, not just yourself. He’s been drilling that into the commandos since he got to training them. You aren’t just a man anymore. You are the embodiment of whatever the hell we are. If you give up, then we will never have a chance.” She turned the chair, resting both of her hands on my shoulders so I couldn’t turn away.
“James, they can’t do it without you. They need you, and they need the damned prick Commander Salchar. With his smiling mask and confident eyes, the man with a plan who isn’t perfect but cares for his people and will do what needs to be done.”
“What if I get them all killed?” I asked, not looking her in the eyes.
“They accept that they can die, but they’ve accepted you. If they hadn’t, then we would already be dead.”
“I can’t do it.” I looked away. I knew I was being selfish, but there was nothing I could do. I had twenty thousand—half trained or less—scared people with Mechas who I could kind of rely on, a planet that would be destroyed with everyone we had ever known, and an enemy that spanned systems and had billions of mindless troop slaves. Victory was not possible.
“They need you, MT needs you, and the human race needs you. I need you.” There was a crack in her mask, insecurity plaguing her face.
I finally looked up, seeing the first real emotion on her face. I didn’t think as I grabbed the front of her Mecha, pulling her to me as our lips met.
I felt my worries seep away as, for a few seconds, we stayed there before I released her. She stumbled backward, looking at me, stunned. Her hand hovered over her mouth as she stared at me.
Uh, what... Why... Ugh, dumb move, James! I saw my own shock echo back from her as she recovered first.
“Now are you going to help us, or look like a deer in the headlights, as you Americans say?”
I grinned.
“What?” Her face seemed to ice over.
“Closest I’ve ever heard you come to making a joke.” My grin became a smile as she crossed her arms and raised an imperious eyebrow. My smile faded and our brief moment of levity faded as cold anger filled me at the injustice of everything that had happened to all of the enslaved humans and Kuruvians, and Sarenmenti, and the hundreds of worlds of the Union. I fed on that anger as I thought on what Yasu had said.
Free Fleet Box Set 1 Page 25
