by Nate Johnson
“Obamway,” the Captain continued, “you rig the trench with the rest of the mines. Make sure Miss Miller and her people are well clear before you get started. Let me know when you’ve got them in place. Set them for remote operation only. No contact release.”
“Yes, Sir,” the corporal replied.
The Captain nodded. “Let’s get to it, there is no telling how long they are going to keep being stupid. So, the sooner we’re ready, the sooner I can relax.”
“Yes, Sir,” the three men said as they turned to carry out their assigned tasks.
Alicia stood there for a moment, studying the tall Marine.
“Do you think we have a chance?” she asked.
He looked back at her for a long moment. “Do you want the truth?”
She hesitated for a moment the nodded her head.
“It depends. If it was Imperial Marines we were facing, no, not a chance in hell. But, these rat-faced bastards. I don’t know. We won’t know until the end. But the truth is, probably not.”
Alicia’s stomach tightened up into a ball of pure fear. Why wasn’t he afraid? she wondered. He’d just informed her that they were probably going to die relatively soon. Yet he still seemed confident and sure of himself.
Men? she thought to herself. She would never understand men. Especially men like this.
Chapter Eleven
Admiral McKenzie stared out the portal into the inky blackness, his mind reviewing a thousand details and possibilities. None of it really mattered, he thought, the die was cast. He had made his decisions. Going back and second-guessing himself wouldn’t change things. But that didn’t stop the doubt pulling at him.
His insides turned to stone when he thought about that young sergeant, he and his men alone on a strange planet, facing a horde of aliens bent on their destruction. Thousands of men just like that Marine were fighting and dying. Men following a plan he had helped devise. Dying because he put them there.
Not for the first time he reconsidered his decision to abandon the Marines to chase the alien fleet. Had it been the right decision?
“No,” he mumbled to himself. “It was the only way.”
The alien fleet was the true threat. Nothing must stop him from destroying it. Tying himself and his ships to the planet would trap him. Better that his fleet have the maneuverability he needed to succeed.
Forcing himself away from studying the sticky blackness outside the ship, Mac returned to his desk to finish the report he was preparing for the Emperor.
Really, there wasn’t much to add since the last report. The Marines continued to fight for control of Intrepid, the Alien fleet continued to run. The humans were gaining on them, slowly. His forces remained intact. Now, it was just a matter of time.
Sighing, he closed the report and pulled up the intelligence report from the planet. He swallowed hard when he realized how little they knew. The Marines and Admiral Weber had been surprised by the aliens’ anti-air capability. The alien soldiers seemed to fight as individuals more than you would expect. Strictly disciplined soldiers that became a raging mob until they’d destroyed their target and captured what they wanted. Then they returned to a disciplined force.
So counter to what you would expect.
He was rereading the casualty list when the Intercom interrupted him.
“Sir, this is Combat Central.”
“Go ahead,” he answered.
“Sir, they’re changing course, Slightly, but definitely.”
“I’ll be right there,” he snapped as he jumped up from his chair. This he had to see himself. If they were changing course, his decisions over the next few minutes might make all the difference.
When he stepped into Combat Central it seemed like half the Task Force staff was already there. His chief of staff Captain White along with Churchill’s skipper Captain Freeborn and his executive officer were all standing around the central console. Off to the side, Professor Sinclair gave him a small smile of encouragement. Janet, he reminded himself.
Smiling in return, he pulled his attention to the big monitor and studied the numbers. But his mind wandered back to the good professor. He had come to rely on her, he realized. And for more than her insight into aliens. He relied on her to let him explore possibilities and potential outcomes.
She pulled thoughts out of him. Allowed him to explore without judgment or condemnation. She never scoffed or rolled her eyes when he proposed some outrages plan. Instead, she would quietly let him come to his own realization.
“Sir,” Captain White said, ripping him out of his daydream. “There is a definite course change. A long arc.”
“Let me guess,” Mac said as he took his command chair. “It will bring them to somewhere on the other side of the sun, to be exact.”
“Yes,” the captain said, “How’d you know?”
“Their starting point. The Mesquite’s initial report had them coming out from behind the system’s star.”
Captain White nodded his agreement.
“If so, we might get a chance to cross their T after all,” the Admiral said. “Wouldn’t that be something? The first time such a maneuver has been used in three hundred years.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Janet’s brow narrow in confusion.
He smiled at her and explained, “Crossing the T means cutting in front of him. I can bring all my weapons to bear, he can only use the weapons facing forward.”
Still, she frowned.
“It’s an old trick from the days when ships were made of wood and the men made of Iron. Sailing ships,” he added, just in case she didn’t get the reference.
“Ships would spend days trying to outmaneuver the other just so they could use a larger number of cannon. It quite often came down to seamanship more than firepower.”
She nodded that she understood.
“Of course,” he continued, “it was a lot easier in a two-dimensional battlefield. A third dimension changes things significantly. Especially at these speeds. But it is a good starting point. We will adjust as necessary.
Again, she nodded in agreement. For some absolutely ridiculous reason, her small smile made him feel surer of his decision.
“Captain White,” he said with a firm voice, “Plot a course to intercept the alien fleet, once you have it laid in, have our fleet adjust their course. Let’s cut the bastard off before he can escape.”
The chief of staff smiled broadly, as did every man there. They had a plan. This was no longer a long stern chase. Now it became a game of cat and mouse, and they were planning on being champion mousers before this was through.
.o0o.
Marine Captain Dex Carter turned slowly as he examined the area. Everything they could do was done. Fighting pits dug, shuttle rigged, the trench across the front of the Rift looked excellent with the claymores placed. Even the sandbag redoubt, both walls were up and in place.
It wouldn’t be enough, but it would have to do. Shaking his head, he turned to go back and almost ran into Miss Miller.
“Oh,” she exclaimed as she stepped back out of his way. A middle-aged woman with crinkled bronze skin stood next to her, looking frightened and nervous. A farmer’s wife, he thought.
“Yes?” he asked, probably more forcefully than he should have, but his mind was on a dozen different things and the last thing he needed was to be distracted by a pretty girl.
She smiled slightly and said, “We were wondering if your men would like some food?”
“They have what they need,” he said as he turned to look at his guys sitting in their holes. “We don’t need to take your food.”
She paused for a second before continuing. “Yes, well, we sort of cooked a lot more than we need. We had to do it before the meat spoiled.” Seeing him hesitate, she gently reached to pull him to the side of his arm and whispered, “Please, we want to do something. We owe you and your men so much. Let us do this.”
Dex found himself getting lost in the soft blue eyes pleading with him.
&n
bsp; Realizing how ridiculous it was to object, he nodded. “But have your people ready to get out of there if I give the order.”
Miss Miller beamed and told the other woman to go ahead. The farmer’s wife smiled and hurried back to the civilians. Miss Miller, however, continued to stay there, looking out into the distance.
“Why haven’t they attacked?” she asked.
He laughed and shook his head, “Hell if I know.”
The two of them continued to stand there. He took a deep breath and caught a hint of her perfume. A mix of rose and some exotic flower. It made his heart skip a beat as he closed his eyes and drank it in.
“Where are you from?” she asked, pulling him out of the escape he had sunk into. “Before the Marines, that is,” she added.
Dex paused before answering, “Pyre.”
“Why the Marines?”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, why the curiosity?
She blushed a little, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. Shrugging her shoulders she said, “I just thought that if we’re going to go through this together, you know, the whole alien invasion thing, then we should know a little bit about each other.”
He nodded, it made perfect sense when you thought about it.
“I joined the Marines, to see the galaxy, you know, adventure, and new things. Anything was better than spending the rest of my life working in an office in Pyre. I had nightmares about waking up at forty doing the same thing day in and day out.”
She smiled at him and he knew she understood.
“I’ve never been anywhere,” she said with a sad frown. “What is it like? Going to new places?”
He smiled and paused for a second, “When we make landfall on a new planet that I’ve never been to before? I like to break away for a few days. Get out of the city and into the heartland. That’s how you really find out about a place. In fact, that is what I did the first time I came to Intrepid.”
“You’ve been here before?” she asked, “When?” He could tell that she was racking her brain trying to figure out if she’d ever run into him before.
“About five years ago. We were on a normal patrol and stopped for five days of liberty. After blowing off a bunch of steam at the ‘Riverside’, a couple of guys and I took off and went hunting. Most of the time we ended up sitting around a fire getting drunk.” His face cracked into a broad smile as he remembered. Good times.
“The Riverside?” she asked. “Isn’t that a brothel?”
He laughed. “It was the last time I was there,” he said then saw the disapproving frown she gave him. He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m a Marine, not a saint.”
She continued to look up at him for a long moment. Obviously, she wasn’t used to men like him. Men who enjoyed life while they could because they knew full well it could end at any moment.
Coming to some kind of internal decision she turned away from him to stare out at the distant aliens again.
Without looking at him, she said, “I’m glad, I think we need a Marine more than we need a saint. Don’t you agree?”
He laughed and nodded. You had to give it to this woman, she saw the truth and wasn’t afraid of it.
.o0o.
Alicia Miller was so confused. She had never met a man like this. Alone even when surrounded by people. A man willing to sacrifice for people he didn’t know. A man willing to take on a great burden, just because he was asked to. Just because it was his duty.
When you combined it with his calm confidence, the obvious respect of his men. It made her want to spend the rest of the day learning about him. Silently, she compared him to the boys she knew in college and almost laughed out loud. There was no comparison. While he might have a bit of that back-wood competence about him, he was obviously well educated, and there was something more. Something in his eyes that let her know he was a deep thinker.
What was it her father called such men? “A man for all seasons,” he would say when he met a man he respected. A man comfortable fighting Yarks or talking to a rancher’s daughter. A man who could prepare for an alien attack and still laugh at the funny things in life.
Shaking her head, she tried to push aside the flights of fancy dancing through her mind and said to him, “Thank you, I should probably go help serve the food.”
All he did was nod his acceptance but she could see a little disappointment flash behind his eyes. A look that set her heart racing. The thought that he wanted to continue to spend time with her sent a warm thrill through her entire body.
But, really, she should go help. Pulling herself away, she quickly joined the villagers passing out food to the Marines in their foxholes.
At first, the young men seemed surprised, almost like they were trying to figure out if it was a trick. When they realized it wasn’t, they would light up like someone had just invited them to an Imperial ball.
Each hole was at least four feet deep, situated with the long side facing the enemy. Long enough for three men to stand shoulder to shoulder. At each hole it was the same, surprise at the idea of someone bringing them food. Then one of the men jumped out of the hole to retrieved the food from us while the other two continued to maintain watch across the barren grassland.
“Thank you, Miss,” they would say with a tone that made her aware at just how much they appreciated the food.
“No, thank you,” she would say as she handed down the plates.
On one occasion, a young private frowned. “We’re just doing our jobs, Ma’am, like they trained us. You know. Besides, Sergeant Carter would kick our butts into next Tuesday if we didn’t.”
“That’s Captain Carter, you idiot,” another private said as he stuck a fork full of food into his mouth.
“In my mind, he’ll always be Sergeant Carter. They can put captain bars on him. But that don’t change the fact he is the toughest, meanest son of a bitch this side of Valeria. And those rat-faced freaks out there are going to find out soon enough.”
The other private laughed and shot Alicia an apologetic smile. “I’d waste my time trying to teach him manners. But the man ain’t wrong.”
“Captain Carter doesn’t seem mean to me,” Alicia said, feeling a need to defend the man.
The first private laughed. “You ain’t ever gone on a twenty-mile hike under full load with the man. He will walk you into the ground and then yell at you for leaving a stain in the dirt.”
“Of course,” the second private said, “It’s stuff like that that makes the Eagles the toughest, meanest bastards in the corps. And believe me, right now, you want that.”
All of them looked out over the grasslands at the vast enemy preparing to kill them.
It took Alicia a moment to realize that when they called Captain Carter tough and mean, they meant it as a compliment. One of the highest compliments they could give. To men like this, things like tough were to be admired. The ability to persevere, to shake off the pain and fatigue and carry on. This was what they valued.
It didn’t matter to them if they were abused and pushed to obscene standards. What mattered was that they were able to live up to the standards men like sergeant Carter set. If he could do it, then maybe, just maybe, they could do the same.
It was this attitude that gave them the ability to face overwhelming odds without flinching. It was this attitude that made her heart love them for who they were.
Chapter Twelve
“Sir, movement out front,” Cheavers called over the radio.
Dex turned, dropping his faceplate to get a magnified view. Cheevers was right, groups of aliens were breaking off and marching forward.
“Miss Miller,” Dex yelled, “get your people back.”
Dex watched as her face grew white while she stared at the approaching hoard. But then, she did what he asked and rounded up her people. Shepherding them back into the Rift, throwing him a quick, questioning glance as she passed.
He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but in reality, his heart wasn’t in it. The
thought of losing these civilians, and failing General Smyth was eating at his soul.
“Sir, I’ve got about five hundred breaking away from the main line and marching forward in groups of eighty. The rest are just standing there.”
“I see, Cheavers,” he replied as he watched. A dozen different issues went around and around in his brain. Was there anything more he could do. No, not really. Not with the weapons they had. They were as ready as they could be.
“Sir,” Cheavers broke in again, “they’re positioning something on top of the ridge.”
Dex studied the activity as his heart began to sink. This wasn’t good. He had absolutely no idea what they were doing, but it couldn’t be good.
Some kind of a machine, probably a weapon. A base on a track undercarriage. A half circle dome sitting on top of the base. A dozen aliens running around like they were trying to fix a spaceship. None of it made sense until a massive blue light flashed across the field and into the house located at the edge of the village.
For just a second, the light illuminated the wooden building in a sharp, cobalt blue color before a corner erupted in an explosion.
Dex ducked to avoid the falling debris. Okay, now he knew what was going on. And like he thought, it wasn’t good.
A sharp crack from the main house on the hill drew his attention. Cheevers had taken a shot. Dex immediately looked down range to see if he’d hit anything.
An alien was down on the ground next to the laser weapon.
“The triggerman,” Cheevers said with a smile in his voice.
Dex confirmed that the private was correct. Besides being an excellent shot. The man was smart. He’d identified the man pulling the trigger and taken him out. No need wasting bullets on the machine itself. They’d be ineffective. But the bullets seemed to work just fine on the aliens themselves.
The Scraggs had reacted to the sniper fire by pulling the dead alien away and replacing him with another soldier. The approaching five hundred continued on as if nothing had happened.
“Let them get close,” he told his company. “Hold your fire. Cheavers, keep taking shots. Daniels, take the mortar off to the left, see if you can get in range.”
