No! He clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. The pain helped tether his anxiety. We can’t give up with so much fight left in us.
His eye caught a trooper scouting a spot to place the fifty-caliber tripod he carried. He stared at ground two yards back from the rest on its flanks.
“Corporal, move that weapon up.” Kyle raised a finger directly at the young man behind the units at either side. “Get in line with them. You’re too far back to create solid, intersecting fields of fire.”
The color evaporated from the corporal’s face. He snapped to attention and saluted. “Yes — sir. Sorry, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
Kyle returned the reflex salute with a momentary swipe of his hand. “At ease.” He studied the man and realized he was only a boy, a kid. “How old are you, son?”
The whites of the corporal’s eyes contrasted against his dirt-covered face as they shifted. “Twenty-two, sir. Well, I’ll be twenty-two next month.”
Twenty-one. So young.
“Where are you from?”
“Athens, sir.”
Kyle smiled as a flood of fond memories flashed before his mind’s eye. A childhood spent on the rocky shores of Athens Island, fishing, swimming, exploring caves carved by the relentless waves.
The boy standing in front of him was … him. Only a twist of fate that caused Kyle to be born a few decades earlier separated them. Perhaps there was an alternate universe where their roles were reversed.
Is that man ordering me to make a final stand or is he telling me to lay down my arms? Go home to Athens and enjoy the peace you’ve earned? Is that what I should tell this boy now? I hold his life in my hands. He panned the defensive line. I hold so many in my hands.
The corporal cleared his throat and Kyle realized he’d been standing there in silent thought. “Carry on, corporal. Get that weapon in place.”
“Yes, sir.” He rushed to obey his general’s command.
He deserves better than dying here. Maybe Samantha is right. What’s the point of it all in the end? Duty? Honor? What do they matter to dead young men?
Captain Luke Lynchburg appeared at his side. “This is good ground to fight on.”
“Yes.” Kyle sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. A headache was setting in. Is it worth it? Is fighting here really worth the lives of so many? Is surrender really that bad? What am I afraid of?
Luke cleared his throat, as if to politely interrupt a personal moment, like he could read his general’s mind. “They still have fight in them.”
“What?” Kyle regarded him.
Luke gestured to the line. “They still have fight left in them, sir. They haven’t been defeated yet. They can’t go home and look themselves in the mirror, knowing they weren’t beaten, thinking command gave up on them.”
Luke drew in a breath. “Pendergast doesn’t understand that. She doesn’t know anything about real battle anymore. She knows computers and sims. She’s forgotten about the warrior spirit and what its capable of. You’re our field commander and we’ll follow you anywhere, sir.”
Kyle stared off into the horizon. The rising morning sun filled the low clouds with vibrant reds and oranges. Luke was right. They needed to be defeated before they could go home. Defeat would bring closure for the living, and the dead will have given their lives in the hope of victory.
“How are we doing with keeping Pendergast in the dark? We can’t afford a pissing match of countermanding orders.”
Luke smiled. “As instructed, our updates have been filled with half-truths and datasets modified to back them up. The wounded, empty trucks, and convey of damaged equipment flowing toward HQ has helped sell our retreat.” He gestured at the line. “This here is just preparations for a fighting retreat in the unlikely event we need one.”
“Excellent. She’s also been consumed with recon flights in enemy territory and talks with bigwigs back on Liberty. I doubt they’re loving her plan to fall back and surrender, but I expect they’ll follow her recommendation in the end.” Kyle scuffed. “Ordering her to continue the fight would be a huge political risk. If we fight and still lose, whoever demanded we carry on will be run out of office and off the planet by the public.”
Luke shuffled his feet. “You understand that win or lose, this will be it for you, sir? Me, too. The Army really hates it when you go to such lengths to disobey orders. Maybe our cells will be near each other.”
“Don’t worry, captain.” Kyle waved off his concern. “I’ve given you ample cover in my files. You were following orders, my orders, and I never told you about any surrender plan.”
Kyle shrugged. “As for me...if we lose, I don’t plan on surviving. I can’t ask good soldiers to give everything for a battle we aren’t likely to win when there was a way out and then come out the other end alive.” He shook his head. “No. This is one time I have to lead from the front.”
“And if we win?” Luke arched an eyebrow.
Kyle’s face lit up with a wry smile. “Hell, captain. If we win, then we’ll all be fucking heroes. Any evidence that we were thinking about surrendering will be swept under the rug. That doesn’t leave much room for courts-martial.”
Luke sucked in a breath. “Well, they’re coming, and either way, this is going to be one hell of a show.”
“Yes, it will.” Kyle stared off in the direction of the enemy’s approach. “Time to get ready, captain.” He looked around. “Yes, it will.”
***
A blaring whistle over Captain Reba Chandler’s head sliced through the roar of battle.
“Incoming!” a nameless grunt cried out as he turned to tackle her to the bottom of the foxhole.
An explosion rocked the earth and clumps of dirt showered the hole.
Reba experienced the events with only a fraction of her conscious mind. The vast majority of her awareness was tied into her bots, eight demons of war lying in wait to engage the enemy.
The weight of the soldier on top of her stayed long past the imminent danger. The pressure was uncomfortable and hindered her breathing. It forced her to divert more attention to her physical form.
“Get the hell off me!” Reba squirmed. “I can’t breathe, you fat fuck!”
His body was limp. Trying to push him off was like shoving a sandbag across a beach. Reba gulped air in preparation for another string of insults when the weight vanished. A pair of the troopers assigned to her protection lifted him up and rolled the body onto its back.
A private felt around his neck. “Shit! Sarge is dead.” He stared at her and repeated the information as if he expected her to give a damn.
Reba swung her arms around and put them behind her to lift herself up. “Give me some space. Get that thing out of here.”
The apes sat in silence for long seconds as she fought back to her feet. She turned back to them and shut her eyes. Grunts! When will they learn their place in this army?
Eight windows came into focus in her mind’s eye. The bots were safe in their pits. The Euro forces were almost to the trigger line.
C’mon, you pricks.
An alert flashed. The counterattack was on.
She slipped deeper into the link as power coursed through the drones’ circuits. The tarp overhead fell away as the four spiders marched up the ramp. A pair of mini-tanks flanked the six-legged warriors on each side.
Lasers and mortars leapt from the spiders as their companions unleashed their twin fifty-calibers on full auto. Squads’ worth of Euro infantry disintegrated in the face of such ferocity. It sent a thrill through her body that rivaled orgasm.
Reba was in her element — a goddess of war on the offensive, sweeping mere mortals aside like flies.
A team of Euro BattleMaster units rose up from a depression in the ground. The sight of them filled her with rage. How dare they attempt to match her might? Her fury manifested itself in the form of light and hot steel.
Mortar shells landed amid the enemy formation, ripping apart the earth and filling the air with thunder
. Red streaks lanced out, turning armor plating into slag. The tanks loosed rockets at their counterparts.
Reba was quicker on the trigger. Her minions tore through their lesser foes at the cost of one mini-tank and minor damage to a spider. She was a master and class was in session for the wannabes.
The rampage continued as she pushed onward, chewing up flesh and metal like a harvester through wheat. The enemy had been foolish to expect her to let them come to her. BattleMasters were a tool best used on the attack, and the daring charge had caught them off guard, inflicting far more damage and mayhem than if they’d stayed behind cover like some grunt ape, too scared to poke his head up to shoot back.
Reba felt alive, invincible. She was drunk on success and that blinded her to an inescapable truth. She was charging into the teeth of the enemy. Outnumbered, her luck couldn’t hold.
Euro fire came from every direction and it was concentrated on her. Her nervous system registered the hits, but they were too many to individualize the impacts.
One of her spiders lost its laser ball turret. Then another fell onto its side after a pair of legs were blown off. Two mini-tanks erupted from multiple laser strikes. Each loss left her feeling more empty.
Reba’s bots were dying. She was losing. She was becoming just another grunt in a uniform. Without her bots, she was powerless.
The last of her windows winked out.
She gasped and fell backward against the foxhole wall. Her heart raced and her eyes darted around. The adrenaline had nowhere to go.
No one in the hole paid her any attention. They were too busy firing at the approaching Euro horde.
Reba staggered to the edge and looked over onto the battlefield and her eyes grew large. Dozens of drones, full-size Goliaths and infantry marched for the American line.
They were doomed.
Glancing left and right, she saw that the line held. The grunts were giving them all they were worth and she knew the last of the true BattleMasters in reserve had yet to make their presence felt, but it was over.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
Don’t you fucking cry, Captain Chandler. We don’t cry. Not since that night and we’ll never do it again. Never!
Defeat was staring Reba in the face, and she resolved then and there to die where she stood. She wasn’t going to live on as a POW, a conquered woman.
She searched the foxhole and found a rifle whose previous owner lay next to it and had no more use for the weapon. Picking it up, she checked the magazine and aimed downfield.
Reba took aim and applied pressure to the trigger but paused when the enemy came into focus. “What the hell?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Stanner leaned in to study the radar display in the cockpit of the land-train. The area was rotten with Euro contacts. Armored vehicles, drones, and clusters of infantry painted the screen red. “Geez, I don’t suppose Fred can call ahead again and get them to line up nice and neat for a review?”
Veech’s upper body swayed in the driver’s seat as the land-train rumbled across rough terrain at high speed. “Don’t think a lowly colonel is gonna get that mass to do what we want.”
“Yeah, but at least he’s not a one-trick pony.” Stanner braced himself for a bump. “He did get us clearance to roll right up to the frontline.”
Veech nodded. “He’s been a useful tool.”
“What’s our ETA?”
“Ten minutes and we’ll be in the thick of things. After that, we’ll have to move like lightning if this is going to work.” Veech jerked his head toward the door. “Better go and join the strike force. Make sure we’re good to go. I’ll park this thing as close to their forward command post as I can and send the assault team the coordinates before the balloon goes up.”
Stanner paused at the hatch. “You sure you’re gonna be all right in here by yourself? I could stay to back you up.”
“We need every rifle outside.” Veech patted the dashboard. “We’ll be just dandy. I plan to rampage around and raise all kinds of hell.”
Stanner chuckled. “I bet you will, sarge. Good hunting.”
“Don’t get your ass shot off, corporal.” Veech stared back at him with a stern expression. “This is it. We either win or lose the war here and now. No one quits until we’re dead or all of them are dead.”
“I’ll make sure we don’t.”
Stanner jogged down the hallway to the drone bay. Fifty of the troopers rescued from the POW camp were on one knee, rifle butts on the floor, and lined up in groups on each side of the large door. The battle-scarred mini-tank separated them.
He joined the fire team surrounding Stephanie in the back of the cavernous room. She looked up from her terminal as he approached and managed to smile through her tense face. “You ready for this?”
The forced smile warmed his heart. “You tell me. Our jamming program good to go?”
Stephanie sighed as her shoulders slumped. “We’ve boosted the transmitters’ strength as far as we could go to increase the range. As for the program itself, it’s as good as it gets for the short time we had to throw it together. It will work, but for how long, I can’t say.”
“What do you mean? All of their BattleMasters are on the same frequency. We know what it is and how they shift it. We should be able to jam them for as long as we need, right?”
Stephanie turned a palm up. “In theory, yeah, but after a bit they’ll know something is up and counter.”
“Like?”
Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know, but I doubt they’re just going to take it laying down. They’ll figure something out to get control back. It’s just a matter of time.”
“So we need to move fast.” Stanner punched his palm, sending a slapping sound around the chamber. “Hit ‘em hard and roll ‘em before they can respond.”
“Yes, ...”
Speakers in the bay crackled to life. Veech’s husky voice boomed. “Five minutes! Final checks. Be ready.”
A lead weight formed in his gut.
Stephanie took her place behind a barricade made just for her. “If nothing else, we’ll sure as hell go out in a blaze of glory. No one will be able to say we didn’t give it our all.”
“That’s something, I guess.” Stanner shouldered his rifle. “I’d better get in line to file out.” He addressed the team assigned to protect her. “Make damn sure she’s safe. She’s our most important asset.”
Stephanie let out short laugh. “Until my one tank and one aerial drone are destroyed in the first minute. Then I’m just a lightweight with a gun.”
“Make that minute count, then.”
Stanner turned away but Stephanie stopped him. “One last thing, corporal.”
“Yeah?”
Her eyes narrowed and face tightened. “Kill the BattleMasters first. As many as you can. It won’t mean shit when they break our jamming if there aren’t any BattleMasters around to operate the drones.”
He pursed his lips and nodded before running to take his place in the front of the pack, slapping Olsen on the shoulder as he knelt next to his friend.
Olsen wrapped an arm across his back. “You and me, together again. The universe makes a little bit more sense.”
Stanner grinned. “Just don’t get captured again.”
“Don’t get your ass caught behind enemy lines again.”
“Again? Heck, we’re still behind enemy lines.” Stanner checked his magazine and chambered a round.
Olsen copied him. “You know what I mean.”
“Thirty seconds!” Veech bellowed. “Lock and load!”
“I do.” Stanner nudged him with an elbow. “Stay close. We got each other’s back. Like always.”
Olsen nodded. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I heard from the other prisoners what you did back there at the camp. You handled yourself just fine without me.”
Olsen snorted. “I was about to get a bullet in the head when you rolled in to save me. I don’t call that handling
myself well.”
“I mean,” Stanner bobbed his head searching for the right words. “You stood up for yourself. That’s a good sign for you.”
Olsen smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
The rows of kneeling soldiers leaned right as the land-train applied its brakes to come to a screeching halt. With a jolt, stillness fell over the bay. Stanner touched his wounded shoulder to feel the bandage. He’d almost forgotten about the injury, with the painkillers that were allowing him to ignore it for the coming battle.
Clanks sounded as the bay door released and electric motors whined to lift the slab of steel and deploy the ramp.
A gaggle of Euro troopers had gathered outside the door. They were motionless as the columns of Americans were revealed. Stolen uniforms worn by the first ranks served to confuse the enemy. White rags tied around their right shoulders would help avoid friendly fire.
“Now!” some officer yelled.
Automatic fire spat out, ripping the unsuspecting Euros to pieces. Boots hammered the ramp as a hundred feet rushed out to pour left and right. Firing as they went, they cut down opponent after opponent without meeting resistance.
Stanner was the tip of the spear for a splinter that had peeled off from one of the main columns. An understrength squad of seven followed him down a row of supply trucks, heading toward what looked like a mobile command center.
A lone Euro with panic in his eyes appeared in front of him. A three-round burst from Stanner’s rifle tore open his chest. The bloodied man became a hurdle for the attackers to leap over.
Stanner paused at the last truck. The area ahead was chaos. Officers shouted in German while enlisted grunts ran in every direction. Behind them lay an APC with far more com equipment than usual. A general was at the back hatch, waving for others to get in.
The enemy had Stanner’s small group outnumbered, but they hadn’t expected to have to defend this deep in their interior. They were disorganized and unsure where to train their weapons.
“Grenades.” Stanner pulled one off his belt. “Toss one at that APC and prepare to rush. Max fire suppression.”
Eight balls arched through the air and landed at random spots among the Euro positions. Someone screamed a warning, but it was too late. The explosions turned the surviving defenders into a mass of confusion.
BattleMaster (The BattleMaster Corps Book 1) Page 16
