“What do you mean, copies?” asked Suparat.
The assassin smiled at her. “Hasn’t your knight in shining armor told you what he’s doing here? Or for that matter, what I’m doing here?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“That’s too bad. I guess you’ll go to your grave never knowing why you had to die.”
Cole saw the robot’s attention was wholly fixed on Suparat. He brought his hands together and pressed a tiny red button on his watch.
“Please, I don’t understand. Why do I have to die?”
The assassin drew a sharp blade from her coveralls. “You’re mortal. Everyone dies.”
“Before you kill us, I have to know how you got past my two surveillance drones,” said Cole.
The robot held up a small palm-sized sensor. “I detected their electronic signals and switched them off with this.”
“Are you sure you got them all?”
The robot glanced down at the device and saw a red dot on the screen.
With what strength Cole still had in him, he leaped from his chair and knocked the sensor from the imposter’s hand.
She snarled and brought back her knife to slash at Cole’s throat when she suddenly stopped moving. A horrible cry burst from her lips as the centipede crawled in through her ear canal and scurried around inside her body, looking for her controls. The robot struggled to pull her coveralls off so she could access a panel on her stomach when there was a muffled bang. Her eyes went dark. A second later, smoke crept from her mouth as she keeled over and dropped to the floor, dead.
“Good riddance to you,” said Cole.
“Alan, for God’s sake please untie me,” pleaded Suparat.
He walked over and released her. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around Cole, causing him to wince in pain. “Sorry,” she said, but not before planting a kiss on his lips.
“What were you doing in the hallway in the dark? I almost shot you.”
“When I heard you get up to go to the bathroom I decided to go as well.”
“Well, one thing’s for certain, we can’t stay here,” said Cole. “If she found us, Cromwell could know where we are too. I hate to do this to you, but do you have a trusted friend whose place we could crash at for a few hours?”
“Yeah, I know a couple of people who would gladly help us out.”
“Grab what you can and let’s get out of here before we run into any more trouble.”
“I’ll drive,” said Suparat when they got to their quad.
“I’m okay to drive,” protested Cole.
“Like hell you can. Quit acting tough and let me take care of you for a few hours.”
Cole gave a mock salute and climbed into the passenger seat. His mind was a whirl. He wished he could sit back and let Suparat look after him, but he had to find Cromwell and put a stop to whatever he was planning. As soon as he could bandage himself up, he would be off. The only thing he was sure of was that Cromwell had played everyone, the Kurgans, Sheridan, and himself. And that pissed him off. The man was a master manipulator and Cole couldn’t wait to meet him once more face to face.
Chapter 36
For most people, waiting for a battle to begin can seem like an eternity. Sheridan was surprised the Kurgans hadn’t struck yet. It was nearing midnight, and their sector was still oddly quiet. Less than a kilometer away, the battle raged unabated. Red tracers flew out into the night like long lines of fireflies. Flashes of light from the artillery shells hitting the ground indicated where the front edge of the defensive line began. Above it all, the planes and drones from both sides still fought their aerial ballet as they strived for domination of the night sky. From where he was, Sheridan couldn’t tell who was winning the fight.
“Sir, the MPs have arrived,” reported Adams.
“Okay, stay here while I escort them to our position,” replied Sheridan. He picked up his rifle and walked back through a slender communication trench until he came to the back of his post. In the dark he could see a line of soldiers kneeling on the ground to reduce their silhouette.
“Who’s in charge?” asked Sheridan.
“I am,” said a short man with broad shoulders, holding a machine gun in his muscular arms.
“I’m Lieutenant Hill, and you are?”
“Sergeant Verdorn, sir.”
“How many men did you bring with you?”
“I have nineteen soldiers including myself who I have broken down into three six-man squads.”
Sheridan had hoped for more, but nineteen was more than his entire company strength right now. “Thanks, Sergeant. Are your men familiar with infantry tactics?”
“Sir, each man and woman here is a volunteer. Most of them served in the infantry at the beginning of their careers before seeing the light and becoming an MP.”
“Yeah, okay.” Sheridan couldn’t help but like the sergeant’s brash attitude. “Here’s what I want you to do. Send a squad to each flank to work with the people already there. Your last squad will form our reserve and will only move on my orders, or yours should I fall.”
“Got it.”
“Sergeant, you’re now my second-in-command. I’m desperately short of trained leaders so you will lead the squads on the left and I’ll lead those on the right. Our orders are very simple: if needed we will counterattack to plug gaps in the line before the Kurgans can exploit their advantage.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“I hope so. Dispatch your people and then meet me in my CP. It’s right up this trench and on the left-hand side,” said Sheridan, pointing behind him.
“Yes, sir.”
Sheridan slid back down into the trench and walked back to his post. A vaguely familiar voice seemed to be calling out in the dark.
“Hey, sir, you’ve got to see this,” said Adams.
In the sky above the ridgeline was a holographic image of Sergeant Travers. He looked to be in good health. His uniform was clean, as was his shaven face.
“Not this crap again,” said Sheridan, shaking his head.
Travers opened his arms in greeting. “Soldiers of the 333rd, you don’t need to die for your officers. Like me, many of you were unjustly convicted and sent to a penal unit to absolve yourselves of your crimes. It’s all a lie. You’re there to die while the generals back in the base get fat and lazy. The Kurgans aren’t our enemy. They just want peace like we all do.”
Sheridan looked around. He had expected to see some of the convicts paying attention to Travers’ message. Instead, most were making obscene gestures and more than a few mooned the hologram. He chuckled and shook his head. Those who were left weren’t going to be snowed by some cheap Kurgan propaganda.
Travers continued. “It’s not too late. Join me and save your life. Lay down your weapons and walk toward the Kurgan lines where you will be well treated and given fresh food and safety.”
“Screw you,” called out a soldier who fired off a burst at the hologram’s head. A cheer rang out from the soldier’s friends.
“Hold your fire,” yelled Sheridan. “Save your ammo for the Kurgs.”
Travers’ image faded away.
“I’ve never seen them do that before,” said Verdorn.
Sheridan looked over his shoulder. He hadn’t heard the sergeant slip into the trench. The man had some skills. “It’s standard Kurgan crap,” said Sheridan. “When they take prisoners they find out who has a weak mind and use them to spread their lies.”
“My squads are in place alongside yours. Sergeant Perera has command of the reserve.”
“Thanks. What I’d like for you to do is move over to the left flank and stay there until I call for you. If a shell were to land in here and take us both out, that would put an end to my clever plan.”
“Right, sir, and good luck.”
“You too, Sergeant.”
“Sir, we’ve got reports of movement in the Kurgan lines,” said Adams. “Looks like they’re on the move.”
“Stand to,” called She
ridan. “Watch to your front and make sure the target you engage is Kurgan and not human.”
“Game on,” said Verdorn before running off to join his soldiers.
Sheridan drew his pistol, leaned against the trench wall, and waited for the inevitable onslaught.
“Incoming,” hollered Verdorn as Kurgan shells hurtled toward their position.
Instead of impacting the ground, the projectiles broke apart in the air. A fine silvery mist slowly rained down from above.
“Gas, gas, gas!” yelled Sheridan as he hurried to put his mask on. He had barely gotten his respirator over his head when the fog descended over his trench. Sheridan held out his hand and looked at the silvery mist. He was mystified. It didn’t look like any chemical agent he had ever read about.
With a thunderous boom, the fog lit up and became electrified. Lightning ripped through the mist striking anything metallic. Men cried out in agony as the charge hit them and carried on to the next person.
Sheridan saw brilliant flashes of light coming straight at him, and then darkness.
A disembodied voice kept calling Sheridan’s name. He tried to ignore it, but the voice grew closer and louder until he couldn’t take it anymore.
Sheridan sat straight up and took a deep breath through his respirator. He could see Adams kneeling in front of him, shaking him.
“I’m awake,” said Sheridan. “What the hell happened to me?”
“Sir, you were hit by lightning,” said Adams. “The bolt went straight through you and hit my radio, frying it.”
“A friggin’ weather bomb.” Sheridan shook his head. “That’s a new one.”
Adams helped Sheridan to his feet. “Sir, the Kurgs are coming. Sergeant Verdorn reports that three of our people were killed in the blast. Many others have severe burns on their bodies.”
Sheridan shook his head. “How long was I out?”
“A good five minutes, sir.”
“Damn. You should have woken me long ago.”
“Trust me, sir, I tried.”
Sheridan looked at the smoke coming from Adams’ radio. “Sprint over to battalion HQ and see if they have a spare radio for you to use. If not, stay there and act as a runner.”
“Right, sir.” Adams picked up his rifle and nipped out of the command post.
Sheridan blinked a couple of times to clear the white spots flashing in his retinas.
Small-arms fire erupted from the forward trenches.
The Kurgans had arrived.
For close to an hour the battle raged one hundred meters away. Apart from fleeting images of people dashing from one trench to another, Sheridan had yet to see a single Kurgan warrior. His blood was up, and he wanted in on the fight. He wanted to be in the thick of things and not a spectator.
A darkened shape dashed into his trench
Sheridan swung his pistol over and took aim
“Easy does it, boss,” said Adams, with his hands in the air.
“Announce yourself next time.”
“I’ll try to remember that. Sir, Colonel Denisov says that you’re to be prepared to counterattack into A Company’s position. They’re being hard-pressed and could soon buckle.”
“Very good. Tell the Colonel I’m on the move.”
Both men dashed out of the trench, Adams to the CP and Sheridan to the right-hand portion of his command.
Sheridan made his way through the connecting trench line and found his men already formed up. “Who gave the order to adopt battle formation?” he asked.
“Sir, it seemed the prudent thing to do,” replied an MP corporal.
“I take it you’re the senior person here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, everyone, listen up. We’ve been ordered to assist A Coy. When we step off from here, work in fire teams and cover one another as you close in on the enemy. When we reach A Coy, look for my hand signal to either go left or right depending on where the fighting is the worst. Questions?”
As always, nobody asked one.
“Fix bayonets and don’t be afraid to use it.” Sheridan cursed his broken elbow, wishing he could draw his bayonet and affix it to a rifle barrel. He took a quick look around and then said, “With me. Let’s go!”
A lusty cheer erupted as the soldiers working in pairs moved across the open ground to the back of A Company’s position.
Sheridan was the first man to reach the lines and slid down into one of the trenches. He looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Within seconds, the rest of his team arrived and took up positions facing both directions down the trench.
“Which way do you want to go, sir?” asked the corporal.
“Left, let’s go to the left,” said Sheridan, picking the direction out of the air.
Sheridan took point and advanced with his pistol ready to fire. The first body they came across was a human soldier lying on the ground. She had a peaceful look on her face which made Sheridan think she was sleeping at first. A quick check for her pulse showed she was dead.
“Sir, up ahead,” said the corporal.
Sheridan saw a man helping his severely injured colleague down the line.
“Where are the Kurgs?” asked Sheridan.
“Back that way,” replied the man. “They’ve overrun forward trenches and company headquarters.”
“Okay, keep moving. The unit aid station is about two hundred meters right behind your last trench.”
The man nodded and kept hobbling along with his wounded colleague. Sheridan’s men stepped aside to let them pass.
Sheridan looked at his team. “Stay close and remember, don’t hesitate to kill any Kurgan we come across. They won’t think twice about killing you.” With his hands gripping his pistol so tight his knuckles blanched, Sheridan broke out into a jog. His mind was fixated on one thing alone, killing Kurgans.
The sound of gunfire grew louder by the second. Sheridan turned a corner and almost ran straight into the back of a man fighting for his life from a Kurgan thrusting his sword at the man’s face. Sheridan couldn’t miss. He pulled back on the trigger of his pistol and let off a burst into the Kurgan’s head. Blood, brains, and skull fragments splattered the trench wall.
“There they are!” hollered Sheridan, pointing at a wild melee between the soldiers of A Company and the attacking Kurgans.
“Let’s get them!” screamed one of his men.
Like a pack of banshees crawling out of the depths of hell, Sheridan’s people charged forward and joined in the fight. Bayonets, fists, and the occasional bursts of gunfire punctuated the struggle to the death.
Sheridan spotted a Kurgan captain trying to encourage his men to fight and shot him through the throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his MP corporal struggling to fend off two Kurgans. With a bloodcurdling cry, Sheridan charged the nearest Kurgan and thrust his pistol under the warrior’s armpit, where the protection was the weakest, and fired. The Kurgan hissed as it dropped to its knees. Sheridan took a step back and fired a shot into the hapless warrior’s head.
The second Kurgan, seeing himself outnumbered, stepped back and tried to pick up his partner’s dropped rifle. The corporal lunged forward, and buttstroked the Kurgan on the side of the head, knocking him down. Without hesitation, the soldier thrust his bayonet into his opponent’s neck, finishing him off.
Sheridan waved at the corporal and turned to see how the fight was going. Three of his people were down, but the Kurgs, taken by surprise, were beginning to give ground. “Push them some more, and they’ll break,” hollered Sheridan.
Soldiers from A Company saw the Kurgans begin to falter and rushed to join the fight.
Sheridan was about to challenge a big Kurgan sergeant when the earth began to shake. Please, no more damned burrowing machines, thought Sheridan
In the middle of the melee, the earth cracked open. Rocks and boulders flew skyward.
Instead of a mechanical machine bursting forth, a hideous creature with ten long tentacles and a massive parrot-l
ike beak appeared. It had plate-sized luminous eyes which lit up the crowded trench so it could see. In less than a second, it grabbed two Kurgans and one human soldier with its rubbery tentacles. Soldiers from both sides split apart and scrambled out of the way.
Sheridan had heard stories of Land Kraken before but had always dismissed them as some kind of drunken fantasy. Not now, with its tentacles slithering in the air or on the ground in search of food, he had never been so scared in his life. For a second, Sheridan thought he was going to soil himself.
The horrible scream of a Kurgan as it was fed face-first into the monster’s beak tore through the air.
Sheridan flipped his weapon to full auto and fired a long burst at the head of the creature. With thick armor plating down its sides, the Kraken was nearly impervious to gunfire.
Another human soldier too slow to climb out of the trench was ensnared and dragged helplessly toward the blood-soaked beak.
“Shoot at its eyes!” yelled Sheridan.
Men all around him took up the cry and opened up. The creature flinched for a moment and then closed its eyes. Thick bone-covered lids protected its eyes from damage.
Sheridan swore. It seemed there was nothing he could do to stop the ravenous beast. When he spotted a solution only a couple of meters away, he walked over and grabbed a wounded Kurgan suicide bomber with his good hand and dragged him toward the Kraken’s tentacles. The Kurgan called out to his comrades to help him, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. When he was less than a meter from the closest questing tentacle, Sheridan armed the Kurgan’s explosives and thrust him toward the tentacle. Sheridan ran back as the beast took hold of the screaming Kurgan and pulled him to its insatiable mouth. Just before the beast was about to bite down, the charges in the vest went off, ripping several tentacles from the monster and sending rocks hurtling through the air into its open beak.
The creature let out a loud pig-like squeal and scurried back into its hole. A soldier ran forward and fired off an anti-armor missile into the monster’s lair. An enormous explosion rocked the ground as the warhead detonated.
Renegade (The Kurgan War Book 7) Page 21
