Hammer's Commandos (Hammer's War Book 4)

by James McEwan

  While the two were talking, they failed to notice Kára. The two men heard Yiska scream and then turned to see he had passed out. Kára, now standing next to Yiska, turned to Thad and handed him an ear. “Here, now can we get going?” she asked.

  Thad looked horrified, “Kára, I just was kidding!”

  “Oh, in that case give it back and I will keep it,” she said.

  Thad and St. Claire both looked horrified this time, “What?” they both said in unison.

  “What? You can’t tell when I am joking?” She turned and walked away, her point made.

  Thad dropped the ear and wiped his hand on St. Claire’s suit as if trying to wipe away the gross, “So you care to explain who the others are?” he nodded towards the two Commandos.

  “Oh, I almost forgot, Maxwell and Abele, meet your commanding officer Colonel Thaddeus Jay Hammer,” St. Claire said as he saluted Thad. The two Commandos also saluted and held it.

  “What? Knock that shit off,” Thad said, but no one dropped the salute. Thad realized they weren’t going to until he returned it. So he did and they dropped their arms. “Now what in the Hell is this Colonel business? Did my mother get a bug up her backside to make me a Colonel what in the Starguard?”

  “No, not the Starguard. It doesn’t exist any longer. And Yes, you are a fully commissioned Colonel in the newly formed Terran Alliance military.”

  “But she just can’t make me a Colonel,” Thad said still getting over the shock of being told he was an officer in a military. He didn’t want to be in the military, nor in a war. He didn’t want to be a part of either.

  “Sorry, buddy, but she can. She is the Supreme Commander these days. She got a bit of a promotion you might say. Anyway, she said that even though you never had an official rank when you were in the assassin program, you still were a part of the military. And with the clearance level and time in service you had she made you an Officer. You rank, no pun intended, the rank of Colonel my friend,” St. Claire explained.

  “I see,” was his response as he grabbed St. Claire by the arm and walked him over to the other side of the room so the others couldn’t over hear him. “Look, I always worked alone. I never had a team. Sometimes a partner, yes, but never a team. I don’t know anything about leading a team. Hell, I don’t know any one of them and I don’t know the first thing to do.”

  “Hello dumbass, that is why you have me. I will help you” St. Claire said in a whispered voice with a twisted smile on his face.

  “Look this is really your team, not mine. I have no desire to change that, so if I am stuck with this…” Thad started

  “Which you are,” St. Claire interjected.

  “……then here is the deal. You run the team and I will do all the paperwork. Deal?” Thad said sticking out his hand.

  St. Claire took it and shook it, “Deal. I absolutely hate the fucking paper work that accompanies these things anyway.”

  “Me too, actually” Thad laughed, “So the biggest question now is, who is the unit’s clerk?”

  “Well then I guess it is good that you already know and are on good terms with the clerk,” St. Claire hinted.

  “Let me guess? Eve?” Thad asked.

  “Yep, best damn clerk I ever had,” St. Claire said and he meant it. Eve could file paper, work faster and more do it more accurately than any human or even Ascarian could for that matter.

  On the other side of the room Maxwell leaned over to Pint Size and asked, “So what do you think they are talking about?”

  Before she could answer, St. Claire spun on his heels and addressed him, “What should the duty punishment be for a Sergeant who should have known better than to leave his comm channel open while talking about his superior officers.

  “Shit,” Maxwell said under his breath.

  “It’s still open, Sergeant.” St. Claire said, emphasizing the word “still” garnering an “oh shit” look from Maxwell as he tried to nonchalantly turn the damn thing off.

  St. Claire stared at him for few good seconds but he couldn’t help himself and cracked a smile. “No worries Sergeant. Just proves you are human. Now you two pick him up and let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait I still have to find the girls,” Thad said.

  “Again, if you had your damn comm on you would have heard they are in the courtyard. Fiona has a broken foot but our medic is seeing to it,” St. Claire shook his head and sighed.

  “Okay you made your point.” Thad said and turned on his comm. He didn’t have to think to set the comm frequency as Eve had chosen their personal frequency to use for the teams comm channel. That way when they found Thad again he could communicate with them. “Okay so does our little team have a name?”

  “Our official designation is Alpha Omega 1 1, but…..” St. Claire paused for effect, “…..we just call ourselves Hammer’s Commandos.”

  Thad gave him a funny look, “Oh Hell no, that has to change.”

  “Not a chance buddy, it’s Hammer’s Commandos forever!” St. Claire said while standing a little straighter and hitting his chest plate with his fist in the Roman tradition.

  “Crap,” Thad said, while St. Claire laughed.

  Chapter 36

  Thad and the others had made it to the courtyard. When he got to the doorway leading out he could see Freya. She was standing next to Fiona who was getting her foot cast. She looked up at him and pushed the medic aside and stood up on her foot and started to run. She didn’t get more than a few steps before she tumbled. Freya caught her, “easy sis, let’s let the big lug run to us, shall we? It is only lady-like, after all.”

  The pain in her foot made her listen to Freya’s advice, “I think you just might be right. I think I will sit down and let the man finish his work.”

  She sat down and, before the medic could finish applying the flexi-cast, Thad had made it half way across the courtyard.

  Then, for the second time that day all Hell broke loose. A rocket fired from a Ralnai grav-sled slammed into the stone ground just over a meter in front of him. The explosion sent chunks of stone flying everywhere. If Thad had been a normal human the pressure wave would have killed him, but he was not a normal human. His advance genetics that gave him tighter packed muscles than the normal human gave his internal organs the protection they needed to withstand the blast. It did, however, knock him on his ass and left him covered in a fine layer of black carbon and gray stone.

  St. Claire ran up to him, “Dude, you good?”

  Thad spit out a mouth full of dust and just gave him the look.

  “Oh, wait look who I am asking.” St. Claire said answering his own question.

  Suddenly a Ralnai drop-ship stopped over the courtyard and scores of Ralnai jumped out. Their Jetpacks made great target markers for the Commandos on the ground and they lit up the sky with tracers, lasers, PML’s (portable missile launchers). Ralnai exploded as their jet back fuel cells were hit and exploded. Dead flaming Ralnai parts rained down on the courtyard. It made St. Claire think about an old photo he had seen once about a celebration and the words “Rocket’s Red Glare and bombs bursting in air” popped into his head.

  Eve picked up Fiona and ran with her to an overhang that sheltered them from being hit by falling Ralnai parts. Freya, Lex and Cotton Paw were not far behind them. St. Claire helped Thad to his feet, “That is the second time this week one of those assholes have tried to kill me with one of those,” Thad explained calmly as the courtyard erupted in weapons fire around them.

  The Ralnai where not expecting to get fired upon when they arrived and they were caught off guard, but they quickly recovered. Their grav sleds started making strafing runs and forced the defenders to pull back to the safety of the fortress walls. Except for Thad and St. Claire, who stood in the middle of the hail storm of fire and somehow were not hit.

  The team was split into two now, with half of them on the side with Eve, the twins, Lex, and Cotton Paw, while the other half was on the other side. The team members who were by themselv
es began taking fire from all around them as the Ralnai had landed outside and blown their way in. Pinched and taking fire from both sides they weren’t going to last long. Thad and St. Claire were about to run to their aid when another drop-ship deposited more troops into the fray. Leading them now, in all his glory, was Tor Tran-kor.

  St. Claire took one look at him and knew from the feathers on his helmet and his armor he was their supreme battle master so he said, to no one in particular, “See that guy? You know who he is? He looks like my next set of luggage. Boots, too.”

  “That is Tor Tran-kor their big chief,” Thad said, shaking his head at St. Claire’s remark, as he drew his force sword and flicked it on.

  “Oh, I knew his daddy too. I think I will go introduce myself,” St. Claire said as he detached the clips that were holding his weapon. He handed it to Thad.

  Thad took the weapon and handed St. Claire his sword. He knew, even in this dimension, that the young St. Claire of this dimension had faced Tor Roc-kor, Tor Tran-kor’s father, in battle and famously cut off his right claw. “Go help Kára save the others, I got this.” St. Claire said to Thad.

  “You sure?” Thad asked, worried about his friend facing so many Ralnai.

  “Go Dude, I got this!” Was the answer he got. Thad shrugged his shoulders and took off at a run across the courtyard, leaving St. Claire by himself.

  St. Claire knew also what Thad already knew. They were still alive and untouched because Tor Tran-kor wanted them alive for some reason. He stood his ground and waited for Tor Tran-kor to come address him. He didn’t have to wait long. Tor Tran-kor strolled across the open ground and stop just short of St. Claire.

  Tor Tran-kor was big and he looked a lot like his father. He opened his mouth and roared. It was a display of power. The roar was something that the Ralnai did in an attempt to intimidate their enemies. It had no effect on St. Claire. St. Claire was too old and too battle worn to be intimidated, much less care. He just stood there and waited.

  “Stand down your men and surrender and I will promise you will all live,” the voice from his translator said.

  “Why that’s awfully generous of you. Let me guess you will allow us to live as your slaves, right?” St. Clair said snappily.

  “Of course! You may even get to keep your women. Let it never be said that the great Tor Tran-kor was not as merciful in life as he was terrifying in battle!”

  St. Claire laughed.

  Tor Tran-kor was flabbergasted. “You dare mock me human? I will have your head on my wall by this afternoon!”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think if you thought you could win this fight you would have already, and you wouldn’t be here offering me terms, now would you?” What St. Claire was really doing was buying time for the Eden to make her return run and even out the teams a bit.

  “Could snap you like a twig you…” The translator box couldn’t quite translate the next few words they just came out garbled, however he didn’t need to speak Ralnai to get the message.

  St. Claire held up the force sword, “Now first we need to set the way-back machine to a distant past time. Remember when I cut off your daddy’s claw? Now I am wondering what parts of you I can carve off before your buddies get to me.”

  On the Eden, Ruby, who had been out since she had destroyed the last of the Ralnai ships, lay in bed in the infirmary. Carl who had agreed to watch over her was reading a cooking magazine on a tablet next to her bed when she sat straight up, “My family is in trouble!” she stated simply.

  Carl let out a long girly scream and jumped. He tossed the tablet in the air because she had startled him so completely. He tried in vain several times to catch it but it still ended up on the floor. “Damn it girl what are you trying to do? Give your old uncle Carl a heart attack?”

  She looked at him and gave him a soft smile, “Sorry uncle Carl, but I need to help them. Where is my armor?”

  He pointed to it. Her armor was still on the counter where they left it when they stripped it off of her. No one had cleaned it and the visor was still caked with her dry blood. She looked at the armor and it floated over to her. She hopped out of bed and stood there as the armor pieces connected with her. It was normally a two-person job to latch all the latches and seal all the seals. She did it by herself, using nothing, but her powers.

  Carl was stunned at what he was seeing. He didn’t know she could do that and seeing it for the first time was a little much. He locked his knees when he stood up and after a minute he passed out. Ruby caught him with a mere thought before he hit the floor. She gently picked him up and set him down on the bed. She then looked at the dried blood and flakes lifted off the visor and floated over to the nearby sink. “Eve, I’m going down to help them. How long until we are back in Range?”

  Eve was confused about how she could know that her family was in trouble, how she could know that they were on their way back and would be back on target in a matter of minutes, and all the while she was a sleep, “We will be back over them in two minutes.”

  “Good. That gives me plenty of time to get to the cargo bay. Please open the door as I’m going to go help,” Ruby said as her helmet seated in place and she latched the last latch.

  “Miss Ruby I must protest…” that was all Eve got out before Ruby cut her off.

  “Don’t argue with me Eve I’m going one way or the other and you know you can’t stop me,” Ruby reminded her.

  “The aft cargo door is open. Be careful!” Eve said knowing that there really was nothing she could do to stop her.

  “Thank you, Eve,” she said as she ran for the cargo bay.

  Inside the fortress part of the team was holding a room that led to the courtyard. Kára was working her Eli blast rifle as fast as it would cycle. If it hadn’t had a built-in safety to keep it from melting down, she would have fired it until it did. They were able to keep up their fire and the small hallway they were in kept more than two Ralnai from charging at any given time. They were working the fatal funnel to their advantage, but it wouldn’t last as their sensors picked up the power signature of a slaver disintegrator. The Ralnai were cutting their way through the walls.

  St. Clair may not have had the skill and poise with a sword that Thad had, but what he did have is experience brawling and he wasn’t about to face Tor Tran-kor on his terms. He launched into a series of strong blows.

  Tor Tran-kor much faster than St. Claire expected. He drew his own blade in time to block all of St. Claire’s swings. The fighting in the court yard came to a halt as the Ralnai stopped to watch the two leaders battle.

  The half of the team that was with the twins, Eve, Lex, and Cotton Paw noticed that the Ralnai had stopped firing at them. Eve took a chance to look around the side of battered and broken door to the courtyard. She saw what had caused the Ralnai to stop shooting. She shook her head, “Now what does that idiot think he is doing.”

  “He is buying us time with his life,” Freya said as she peaked around Eve to see what she was looking at. “We need to move Eve,” Freya reminded her as she tugged on her arm. Eve relented and turned back to the others. The others had their weapons pointed at a woman who seemed to come from nowhere.

  It was Sabella and she was holding up her hands. Eve ran to her side, “Don’t shoot she is a friend!” The Commandos lowered their weapons. Sabella motioned towards her, “This way hurry. I can get you out, but we must go now while they are distracted.”

  Eve nodded and waved for everyone to follow Sabella. Freya and Lex where helping Fiona when Eve tried to help. “We got this, besides I think we are better off having you watch our backs,” Freya said.

  While St. Claire was busy fighting with every ounce that he had, half of his team slipped into a secret passageway unnoticed.

  Thad reached the other half of the team and took one look at Kára and the look on her face told him that she was worried about the team. Pinned down from both sides he had to do something fast. Kára would have just blasted them all, but her armor was st
ill repairing its self.

  Thad was done wasting time, it was time that he earned the title, Angel of Death! He handed off the cone rifle and collected two combat force blades. They were the eight-inch combat knifes that all the Commandos carried attached to the front left shoulder plate of their armor.

  Armed with one in each hand he stepped to the hallway and yelled down the hallway at the Ralnai, “Stop shooting for a second I have something to say!”

  One of the Commandoes looked at him and asked, “Sir, what are you doing?”

  Thad smiled, “Negotiating!”

  The weapons fire halted and then they could hear a Ralnai translator box, “Are you ready to surrender?”

  “Nope!” Thad yelled back.

  “Then, what do you want? You wish to say your last words?”

  “Nope, just wanted to give you all a chance to lay down your weapons and walk away alive,” Thad answered them.

  It was quiet for a few seconds then all they could hear was loud deep Ralnai belly laughter coming down the hallway. “You are a funny little human. I think if you survive this I will keep you for a pet!”

  Thad laughed. He didn’t care for the Ralnai, but he did have to admit, that they did have a sense of humor he could appreciate. “I think I will decline. Last chance lay down your weapons or else!”

  “Or else, what? Silly human you are outnumbered, out gunned and you have no hope of beating the power of the Ralnai!” The voice responded.

  “Or I will make my wives a pair of new boots out of your hide,” Thad yelled down the hallway. That answer was met with a series of howls, grunts, and a hail of weapons fire.

  “You can’t say that I didn’t warn them,” Thad said to the Commando who had asked him the question earlier.

  “Now what Sir?” The commando asked.

  “I finish the negotiations!” Thad said and then pointed to two Commandos, “Flash the hallway!” He ordered.

  The two Commandos followed orders and tossed two flash bang grenades down the hallway. They bounced a couple of times before exploding in a brilliant flash of light and sound. Thad waited until after they exploded to enter the hallway.