Storm World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 10)

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Storm World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 10) Page 42

by B. V. Larson


  I considered that. This Claver did seem different to me.

  “You’re a bad grow, aren’t you?” I said. “Or rather… a good grow? A Claver with a conscience?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Good enough. Let’s say I’m willing to believe all this—and I am, as I found that lady-Claver myself, and I’ve seen for years how the others don’t like to talk about her. Given all that, why are you here now? What are you trying to pull?”

  “I need Earth to stay in this game,” he said. “This is the final chapter—or it could be. I’m here to win this war, to help Earth keep her status as enforcers.”

  “Why does Earth…? Oh, so you can find, um, companions. Is that it?”

  He shrugged.

  Outside, the sirens wailed again. The Wur and their allies from Rigel were about to attack. I could hear star-fall artillery firing from the center of the fort. Each plasma ball carried death with it out into the endless forest. When a warhead struck down, it took out a giant tree or an entire formation of smaller enemy troops.

  The battle was on.

  “We need to win this battle first,” I said.

  “We can’t. No one can. Too many will come. Thousands upon thousands… But, there’s another way…”

  -71-

  When I heard Claver’s plan, I knew it was a winner—it was also ironic.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You want me to locate and kill the last Wur Nexus? The brains of the enemy?”

  “It’s the only way. Rigel tore up the rest, which brought the Wur to the negotiating table. However, if that last one fell, the Wur would have no brains left on Storm World.”

  “But back on Death World, you were totally set against that same tactic.”

  He shrugged. “Of course I was. Back then, I wanted to make a deal with the plants. Today, I want to stop them.”

  A voice spoke off to my left then. It was Cooper, who’d apparently been hanging out quietly all this time.

  “This guy is a snake, Centurion,” he said. “He’s full of shit. I can kill him for you, if you don’t want to do it.”

  Claver looked startled. “A ghost, huh? I’d heard about you guys recruiting slime like that. No wonder you’re hard to keep in a cage, McGill. You’re a cheater.”

  “What about it?” Cooper asked. “Should I off him? I’ve got a blade at his throat, and he doesn’t even know.”

  Claver tried to look brave, but he took a half-step back and gulped anyway.

  Mystified by the situation, the two heavy troopers looked around with rolling eyes. They reminded me of horses that were about to start kicking things.

  “Nah…” I said. Giving my head a shake, I looked at Claver thoughtfully. “You really are a different kind of Claver. Either that, or you’re extra-tricky today. What should I call you? I mean, you’re not exactly a Claver-Prime.”

  “That’s true… Call me Claver-X. I like the sound of that.”

  Cooper snorted.

  “All right, X,” I said. “How do we do this thing with the last Nexus?”

  He worked his tapper. “First off, I’m sending a message to Armel right now informing him that you’ve agreed to this suicide mission.”

  “Uh…”

  “See?” Cooper asked. “What did I tell you?”

  “What’s the problem?” Claver demanded, lowering his arm. “Did you think Armel walked me over here to spring you out of prison as an act of sheer love? Grow up. We made a deal, and I just sealed it.”

  “Uh…” I said, thinking hard. “This is going to suck then, I take it?”

  “No, no, no,” Claver said sarcastically. “It’s going to be a springtime walk in the woods. Assemble your unit and a few hundred of your crappy natives. We’ll break out over the mountains while the main attack advances on the walls.”

  Grumbling and hustling, I gathered my gear and trotted to where my unit was stationed. I considered going AWOL, of course, but how would that turn out? I was on a craptastic mud-ball of a planet. If all the humans were killed, I couldn’t imagine I’d have a fun life outrunning the victorious Wur.

  At least this way I wasn’t going to have to sit out the battle in a prison cell. I could die in style.

  “McGill?” Harris called out to me the minute I showed up. “What have you been doing? Screwing some kind of salamander princess?”

  “That’s pretty close to the mark, Harris. Gather up the unit, we’re moving out.”

  Shaking his head, he turned and began to bellow at the unit. They were embedded in nice muddy foxholes and huddling on the wall tops, but if you thought they’d jump at the chance to get outside the walls and get some fresh air, you’d be wrong.

  “Where are we going, Ace?” Leeson asked me.

  I pointed vaguely into the mountains.

  “Um… you do realize, Centurion, that we’re dealing out effective punishment just hugging the mud and laying on heavy artillery fire don’t you? Those Rigel nut-sacks have put up screens, but star-falls can punch right through that stuff. They’ll be here soon, and they’re coming in vast numbers according to every report. We need to whittle them down all we can.”

  Glancing at him, I gave him a disinterested shrug. “We’re leaving the fort, but we’re not walking straight into the enemy lines. We’re going up there, into the mountains.”

  “Ah…” Leeson said, craning his neck around. “I like that better. Barton and her lights are on point, right?”

  “No, I’m sending about a hundred of the Scuppers in first. Then Barton.”

  He slammed his gauntlets together and grinned. “Sounds good to me! Once we get up there on top of those cliffs, I can set up my 88s and—”

  “No,” I said. “Forget the 88s. We can’t drag them into the mountains. Leave them here for the boys who are manning these walls.”

  Leeson looked crestfallen, but he didn’t argue. He just turned away and began to get his platoon moving.

  Soon, all of my people were organized into a column. We began trekking toward the cliffs to the rear of the compound.

  Behind us, the battle was heating up. Snap-rifles popped and whined. The star-falls kept up their thrum followed by a pounding sound that released a slow-moving plasma ball. Punching through shielding that domed both sides now, it fell in what looked like slow motion among the huge, shadowy trees, many of which were now burning.

  By the time we exited the rear gate of the fort and began marching up a winding trail into the mountains, we could see the Wur hitting the walls. 88s flared into life, a thousand guns fired, and a pall of smoke rose up to obscure the battle.

  Veteran Moller began slapping heads, screaming for members of my platoon to turn their heads back to the trail. She shocked me into motion again as well. We all marched together up the rocky path until we couldn’t see the battle any longer, obscured as it was by the black, wet cliffs.

  “Contact!” Barton called out on the tactical chat channel.

  “What have you got, Adjunct?” I demanded, but she didn’t answer right away.

  “I… I’m not totally sure, sir. The Scuppers are fighting up ahead.”

  Claver-X tapped me on the back. “You’d better get up there, McGill. These lizards are no match for Rigel regulars.”

  I knew he was right, and I began to press my way forward, passing troops on the trail. I had to shove my way past my own platoon and up to Barton’s lights.

  They looked scared and wet, but ready for anything.

  In my headset, I could hear the yammering voices of Scuppers. They were shouting excitedly in their own language.

  I kept moving up the line. Breaking past the lights, I came up on Barton. She was aiming her weapon forward, trying to get a shot.

  Ahead of her, the scene had changed dramatically. The landscape had gone from a gully between two cliffs to a narrow path cut into the wall of the cliff on our right—and a sheer drop on our left.

  Due to the rain and mist, I couldn’t even see the bottom of that
fall. It was black, volcanic-looking rock and scrubby green growths all the way down.

  “Shit…” I said, leaning against the cliff wall on my right.

  “Something is killing my Scuppers, Centurion,” Barton told me. “But I can’t get a shot in. They’re just around a few bends up this winding path.”

  Putting my visor down, I used my HUD. Automatically, Kivi’s drones were engaged. Some of them were programmed to fly and investigate anything the commander looked at. Normally, that tech feature didn’t matter much. But with this low visibility and rough terrain, it proved useful.

  I soon got a visual flow. There were small figures up there, a long, long line of the friggers. Right off, I knew what we were facing. The enemy was distinctive due to their size and tenacity.

  “Rigellian regulars!” I shouted, relaying the feed to the rest of my officers. “They must be coming this way to scout the rear of the fort.”

  “I bet they planned to infiltrate and slip into Armel’s backdoor,” Harris said, laughing. “We’re a rude surprise for them!”

  “It’s rude for our native troops, too,” Leeson added. “They’re killing our Scuppers ten to one.”

  It was true. Using their shotguns and superior strength, they forced the salamanders back. The Scuppers tried to fight, and they made a good show of it. They applied their spears with vigor, jabbing and shocking the oncoming soldiers.

  But it was an uneven contest every time they met in battle. Single file the Scuppers edged up closer and closer to the advancing Rigel line coming the other way on the narrow path. Each time a Scupper met up with a Rigellian regular, a fight to the death began. Behind each man was the pressing mass of their own troops, which didn’t allow them much room to maneuver on the narrow, slippery path.

  The worst part for our side was the uneven weaponry. Spears have reach, but shotguns have more. The usual process had a Rigellian soldier methodically blowing the guts out of one native after another, until he had to reload.

  At that point, the next desperate Scupper would charge in and thrust.

  Even then, it was far from a certain kill. These boys from Rigel were strong and mean. They’d often grab hold of the taller soldier’s spear and hurl him over the side. Even if they took the shocking blow, they didn’t stay stunned for long. They got in close, and fought until one of them was dead.

  Now and then, a Scupper got lucky and jolted one of the enemies in the leg or foot, and he’d go down and slide away into the abyss to the left. Once, I saw two of them go over the edge in a deadly clinch.

  The Scuppers were too weak to hold up against this enemy, of course, but they had weight and leverage. After the first took one bear with him, I saw more decide to go for it. Grappling with a bear and then clutching it firmly, he would go over the edge taking his hated foe with him.

  “Goddammit!” I roared. “They’re dying hard up there. I’m moving up!”

  Barton gave me a startled glance. “If you let the Scuppers wear them down, sir—”

  “Forget it. I’m not watching a hundred of my troops die ten-to-one against those fucking bears. They’ve already lost half their number. I’m going up.”

  It was easier said than done. The pathway was only half a meter wide in spots. I had to literally lift terrified Scuppers bodily at times, placing them behind me on the path and moving forward a single slot.

  Up ahead, the battle was fierce and desperate. Even the bears looked tired and worried. They’d lost plenty of men, too.

  After scooting up a dozen spots in line, and seeing another dozen Scuppers die against one single Rigellian casualty, I was finally able to get a shot.

  The cliff curved a little, and the enemy troops were on the opposing wall. There was a spur of rock between us, and I hid behind it.

  For openers, I tossed a grav-plasma grenade.

  Apparently, none of these fellows had ever seen one. That made sense, as our two species had only done battle on a couple of occasions. We were both due for some surprises.

  A few of the enemy eyed the glowing device for about a second, and one moved to pick it up and toss it off the cliff.

  Before he could let go, it went off in his hand. Plasma grenades were strange weapons. They picked up elements of their environment and hurled them outward with terrific velocity. In this case, there was plenty of shrapnel to be had. Rocks, pebbles—even raindrops were transformed by a blue-white flash into a brilliant spray of death.

  Their tough suits kept them from being killed outright, but they weren’t happy. Two toppled off the cliff, knocked senseless. A third was in combat with our line of Scuppers, and he took a spear in the guts. That was the end of him. Stunned and limp, he toppled from the path.

  “Pass up more grenades!” I called. “Pass them all up, one at a time!”

  Behind me, the Scuppers and the light troopers did as I’d ordered. The native troops only had their spears, but each light in Barton’s platoon had been issued a single grenade. They were soon flowing up at a steady rate.

  The first thing I did was shorten the timer down by two seconds. That was dangerous, but I didn’t want them to have a chance to toss one back or for the grenade to roll harmlessly off the cliff.

  Again and again, I tossed them at the enemy. They were blown off the cliff as each new group came marching up to replace the last.

  “How many of these fuckers are coming up this mountain?” Harris demanded in my earpiece.

  “Let’s hope it’s all of them,” Barton said. “McGill is screwing them over badly.”

  After about a hundred kills, my luck ran out. Someone noticed me through the swirling mist, tossing grenades into their ranks.

  I’m no expert on alien expressions, but—they looked pissed.

  -72-

  What had covered for me up until that moment—besides the rain and the mist—was the fact the enemy were rounding a corner. They kept marching along the pathway around a fold in the mountain that prevented them from clearly seeing the source of the grenades. They’d probably figured the Scuppers were throwing them—until somebody saw me.

  Pointing and snarling soon gave way to blasting at me with their shotguns. Fortunately, I was far enough away that their first blasts spread wide.

  Still, I was hit and almost slid down into the abyss at my feet. Scuppers grabbed my arms and strained. One of them was shot down—but another took his place. They dragged me back around the spur of rock and down the trail until I was sheltered from enemy fire.

  My left leg was a mess. I took some stims and allowed my suit to patch up the bloody holes. Shotgun pellets, driven with terrific force, had penetrated my armor and made a few marble-sized holes in my thigh.

  Carlos and my suit worked together. He patched me up, and the suit tightened so I could walk with a limp. Afterward, I was breathing and talking between clenched teeth.

  “They finally got you, huh?” Carlos laughed. “That was unbelievable, McGill. We were all watching on the drone-feed. Such a bunch of morons—you must have killed fifty of them.”

  “More like a hundred.”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Centurion. You want some drugs?”

  I considered the offer. I would be less sharp, but the pain had a way of dulling a man’s mind anyway.

  “Just some local stuff. We’re not off this mountain yet.”

  We were sitting in an alcove, a deeper spot along the trail that was a good two meters from the cliff edge. I soon closed my eyes. I needed a second to rest.

  Next thing I knew, Barton’s light troopers were stepping right over my sprawling form. Carlos himself had left. Had I passed out again?

  “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Barton? I didn’t order an advance. If you press the Scuppers too hard they’ll go down faster.”

  “Sorry sir,” her voice buzzed in my helmet. “I’ve been reporting directly to Leeson since you passed out.”

  “I didn’t pass out,” I grumbled. “Carlos, did I pass out?”

  “Uh…
do you really want to invite me to some kind of piss-party over this detail, Centurion?”

  I considered. “No. I don’t care. Why are you advancing, Leeson?” I called out on tactical chat.

  “Because the enemy is pulling back. They’re in retreat, sir.”

  Slowly, a grin dawned on my face. The Rigel boys had had enough.

  “Are they running, or out of troops?” I asked.

  “I’d wager it’s a little of both. They’re backing down the mountain, setting up ambushes—but they aren’t willing to take more losses. Each time we rush one of their set-ups, they’ve already withdrawn farther.”

  Claver-X appeared. Maybe he’d been waiting for this moment. He squatted and looked me over.

  “You feeling like a quitter today, McGill?” he asked me.

  Shaking my head, I began to struggle to my feet. Carlos arrived and tried to push me back down.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Centurion,” he said.

  “Then pump some fresh stuff into my veins,” I told him, giving him a shove.

  He teetered on the edge of the cliff, cursing, but Moller came along and pulled him back onto the ledge again.

  “That was uncalled for, even for you,” Carlos complained.

  “Just keep me walking. I can’t stop now, or the wounds will stiffen up.”

  I looked around for Claver, but he’d moved on. I was still not a hundred percent sure I trusted him—by that I mean I didn’t trust him at all. Maybe he’d flipped over a new leaf, or maybe he’d come up with a cock-and-bull story to get me to escort him into these mountains. Either was possible.

  Having been shot any number of times in the past, I knew all too well the feeling of one’s muscles contracting painfully. I had to get up and keep moving. My body didn’t like getting shot much. I could hardly blame myself for that, but this war wasn’t going to win itself.

  Using a cocktail of drugs from Carlos’ magic bag and my suit’s emergency injury management system, I was able to keep on my feet.

  Soon, the sporadic gunfire up ahead slowed, petered out, and died completely.

 

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