The Price of Liberty (Empire Rising Book 4)

by D. J. Holmes

  “Let’s get out of here,” Johnston called as soon as the debris stopped falling. One look told him that the Indian advance had been slowed. But it wouldn’t take them long to clear the fallen rocks and swarm their position.

  Chapter 9 – Defeat

  It has been said for centuries and every new conflict it proves itself true again; war always takes the best of our young men and women.

  -Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD

  10th July, 2467 AD, Haven.

  It took them just over a minute to sprint down the cave to the next defense position. When they got there, Johnston assessed the situation. Like the last defense position there was a permasteel barrier in place to help the defenders. That wouldn’t do them any good, as soon as the Indians got their portable barrier working they would quickly break through the Havenite defenses. They would have to do something different this time.

  Looking back up the tunnel, Johnston scanned the cave wall until he found what he was looking for. “Listen up lads,” he said to the defenders. “Those of you who just fell back with me can head back to the main cavern and join the defenders there. You’ve done enough for now.”

  “Are you sure Sir?” One of the defenders asked. “We are ready to have another go at those Indians.”

  “You’ll get your chance,” Johnston said. “But this is going to be a bloody business. Let’s make sure everyone gets a taste of the action.”

  They seemed to take Johnson at his word; they turned and trotted down the tunnel. Johnston was happy they listened to him, he hadn’t been exaggerating, the night’s fighting was going to cost the resistance dearly.

  As Johnston surveyed the remaining Havenite defenders he frowned, the woman who had helped him up after he was hit with the plasma bolt was still with them. He walked over to her, “Aren’t you going to go back with the rest of them?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” she replied. “You’re injured, I have medical training, you may need me. Superhuman you may be, but you’re not indestructible. Clare and I used to work together in the Council Chambers. I saw the way you two were holding hands when you came in together, if something happens to you she won’t forgive me. So if you’re staying, I’m staying.”

  Johnston felt like shoving the woman back down the tunnel to safety, but he didn’t have the time. “Fine,” he whispered to her, “just don’t get in my way, and try not to get killed, if you are a close friend I don’t want your death on my conscience.”

  “Okay, it’s down to the rest of us then,” Johnston said, raising his voice to address the defenders. “The Indians have some kind of portable barrier, they used it as cover to advance on the last permasteel barrier and lob flashbangs at us. I have a plan, but it’s going to be risky. You’re going to have to let the Indians advance on your position, don’t take any risks but keep firing on them as they advance. We don’t want them thinking you’re just hiding here waiting. I’m going to lay an ambush for them, when I spring it, you are to charge to my position, we will take over their barrier and use it against them.”

  “You mean you’re going back up the tunnel on your own?” One of the soldiers asked.

  “I would ask for volunteers to join me,” Johnston said. “But I know you would all want to come, and I need you to stay here and convince the Indians that this is just another barrier they have to overcome. Besides,” Johnston added with a smile, “you know I like to keep all the glory for myself.”

  The defenders didn’t respond other than cracking a few smiles and elbowing one another. By now all the resistance fighters knew just how cocky British special forces marines were. Happy they weren’t going to follow him, Johnston jogged back up the tunnel. When he reached the position he wanted, he waved to the defenders to let them know where he was. Then, after taking a deep breath, he forced himself into a crevice in the cave wall. With luck, the Indians wouldn’t notice him until it was too late. One way or another he was about to find out, as the sound of armored feet pounding against the tunnel floor echoed all around him.

  The steep angle at which the tunnel descended into the mountain meant the feet of the Indian soldiers were the first thing that came into view as they advanced. Despite Johnston’s command, the defenders were overeager. As soon as the armored feet were visible they fired gauss cannon rounds at their enemies. The Indians, alerted to the presence of another defensive position, fell back.

  Johnston cursed as everything went quiet. He knew what the Indians were waiting for. Sure enough, when the noise of the Indians advancing picked up again, the portable barrier came into view. The Havenite defenders resumed fire and vainly tried to hit the Indian soldiers.

  The Indians knew exactly what they were doing. Instead of returning fire, they resolutely advanced towards the Havenite position. They would save their fire for when the Havenites had been incapacitated by the flash bangs they were getting ready to throw. They weren’t counting on Johnston however.

  As soon as the portable barrier passed the crevice Johnston was hiding in, he jumped out behind the Indians. He sighted his gauss cannon on the first Indian soldier. Two bolts blew their way through the soldier’s armor and he fell to the ground in a heap. Before the Indians knew what was happening, Johnston downed two more of them. Whoever was in charge of the squad carrying the barrier must have realized what was going on; as one, the rest of the soldiers dropped the barrier and spun.

  With no other choice, Johnston advanced on them. Outnumbered four to one he had only one chance, they couldn’t fire on him if he was in the middle of them. With no other hand to hand weapon he used his gauss cannon as a club. Swinging wildly, he hit the nearest Indian soldier over the head, sending him reeling to the ground. As another soldier advanced on him, raising her plasma rifle, Johnston rushed forward. Tackling the soldier under her rib cage he hoisted her into the air. A gasp of surprise escaped her lips as Johnston threw her and her armored combat suit over the barrier. With nothing to protect her from the defenders, three gauss cannon rounds quickly burst through her armor, killing her.

  Johnston turned to face the last two Indian soldiers. One already had his plasma rifle tracking towards Johnston. Instinctively, he moved to put the last Indian soldier between him and the deadly plasma bolt that was about to come his way. He reached out with his right hand and snapped the plasma rifle out of the hand of the last soldier. Before he could do anything else, the searing pain in his side flared into a bright sun. Looking down, Johnston saw the armored fist of the last soldier buried in the wound the plasma bolt had burnt into his side just minutes ago. As the pain rushed through his abdomen he fell to his knees and let out a loud groan.

  “Not so fast are you now?” the Indian soldier who was standing over him said. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are, you British scum. Well, you’ve launched your last ambush,” he said as he raised his armored fist above Johnston’s head.

  Johnston saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head ever so slightly, he tried to see what was happening. Seeing his prey’s eyes flicker, the Indian soldier turned. It was too late, gauss cannon rounds peppered the Indian soldier, blasting him away from Johnston. More rounds tore into the other Indian soldier, killing her before she could return fire.

  Before Johnston was fully aware of what was going on, the female resistance fighter was at his side. “I told you, you weren’t indestructible,” she said. “He got you in the exact same spot,” she continued as she examined the wound in Johnston’s side. “It looks like he broke a number of your ribs, I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Johnston said, as his enhancements lessened the pain from his side. “We need to use the barrier.”

  “Don’t worry Major,” one of the other fighters said, “we figured out your plan. As soon as we saw that Indian soldier hurled over the barrier we knew what you wanted. We can take it from here.”

  Even as Johnston struggled back to his feet, the Havenites picked up the Indian barrier and turned it arou
nd to face the next wave of Indian attackers.

  “You’ve done enough for now Major,” the female fighter said as she helped steady Johnston on his feet. “I need to get you back to the main cavern, there will be some more medication we can use there. If you keep trying to fight, you’re only get yourself killed. Let our medics look at you and patch you up a little bit before you get back to the fight.”

  Johnston wanted to disagree, but as he took in a deep breath to speak, a new wave of pain washed over him. “All right,” was all he managed to say. Taking another breath, he tried again, “If you’re going to give me orders, you better tell me your name.”

  “It’s Rebecca,” the female resistance fighter said. “I was a receptionist in the Council chamber before the Indian invasion, my father was a medic, he died ten years ago, but he made sure I knew how to look after myself. I have had to learn a lot more since the Indians arrived.”

  “Let’s hope your skills will not be needed too much more tonight,” Johnston said, trying to make light of the situation.

  With his newly acquired personal physician’s help, he hobbled back down to the main cavern. He tried to figure out how long he had held the Indians off for but he had lost all sense of time. The sound of intense fighting echoed down the tunnel towards them and they picked up their pace. If the Indians were assaulting the defenders they had just left behind, they would soon be coming down the tunnel behind them.

  When he got to the main cavern Johnston was relieved to see that Pennington had already cleared it of civilians. The cave system beyond the cavern was a maze of smaller tunnels that crisscrossed under the mountain. Pennington had obviously got all her people into them. Johnston just hoped no one would get lost. Though getting lost was likely to be the least of anyone’s worries tonight.

  When Lieutenant Moony saw Johnston hobble into the cavern he rushed to his commander’s side. “Are you okay Sir?” he asked as he helped Rebecca support Johnston.

  “I’ll be fine,” Johnston replied. “How long has it been?”

  “Just over fifteen minutes,” Moony replied.

  “Is that all?” Johnston said through gritted teeth. “It seemed like longer.”

  “I think your injury is effecting you more than you know,” Rebecca said. “I need to get him to one of the medical stations,” she added for Moony’s sake.

  “They have been evacuated,” Moony replied. “We have set up a triage station just beyond the cavern in the south-east tunnel. You can take him there. Reynolds,” Moony called out. “Get over here,” he ordered. “Help this lady get the Major to the triage station, then get your ass back here asap.”

  “Aye Sir,” Reynolds responded as he jogged up. “I’ll take care of the Major.”

  “Hold on,” Johnston struggled to say.

  “Don’t worry,” Moony said over him. “I’ll hold things down until you get back. You just get yourself patched up, we’re going to need you in no time if my guess is right.”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Johnston said through gritted teeth. The pain was really spreading now. Each breath was a struggle.

  Sensing his pain was increasing, Rebecca turned Johnston towards the south-east corner of the cavern and moved towards the triage station. Reynolds followed her lead.

  *

  “Listen up,” Moony shouted to be heard by the Havenite defenders. “Conserve your ammunition, this is going to be a bloody fight, we need to make every shot count. And be prepared, the Indians are going to break into the cavern, there is little chance we can stop them. But we don’t need to stop them, we just need to slow them and make them bleed. And you all know how to do that. So get ready, and no one falls back until I give the order. Your friends, your family, the civilians who took shelter here are counting on us.”

  He picked up his plasma rifle and trotted to the first line of defense he had the Havenites set up. As ordered, he had set up three lines of defense to allow the Havenites to fall back as the Indians burst into the cavern. There was no way they could stop the Indians getting in, but with an orderly fallback, they could slow their advance. In total, the large cavern covered almost a square kilometer. At its widest, the gap from the floor to the ceiling was over sixty meters. It truly was massive, but with all the equipment, personal items, and living structures that Pennington had set up it looked a lot smaller than it actually was. It certainly left little room for any kind of tactics. The fighting would be hand-to-hand, up close and personal. Though this would give the Indians in their combat armor a decisive edge, it would also help the Havenites, for their gauss cannons could only penetrate the Indian soldier’s armor at close range.

  Any thoughts of alternative tactics vanished when two Havenite fighters ran out of the tunnel. “They are right behind us,” one shouted. The other appeared to have taken a plasma bolt to the leg; from the look on his face, he wasn’t in the mood to be saying anything.

  Moony raised his weapon and aimed at the cavern entrance. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself as he felt the familiar feeling of adrenaline rushing through his body. When there was no sign of the Indians sixty seconds after the Havenite fighters appeared, Moony relaxed slightly. What are they up to? he asked himself.

  Before he could answer his own question, the Indians acted. More than twenty quadcopter drones surged through the small tunnel and zoomed over the defenders. “Shoot them down,” Moony shouted.

  He needn’t have bothered, the Havenite fighters acted on instinct and poured fire into the air to hit the drones. The Indian quadcopter technology was ancient, but it was perfectly suited to the small confines of the cave system. They darted back and forth, dodging fire as they rushed the defenders.

  “Take cover,” Moony shouted. The drones were almost impossible to hit.

  The first drone exploded. Carrying a single high explosive shell, the drone detonated directly above a large crate two Havenite fighters were using as cover. The explosion sent a wave of fire and shrapnel biting into the two fighters, killing one and maiming the other. All across the first Havenite defensive line, explosions ripped into the defenders. Alongside high explosive shells, some of the drones were carrying flash bangs, disorientating the men and woman trying to fight off the Indians.

  As soon as the explosion subsided Moony looked up, already expecting what he saw. More than fifty Indian soldiers in combat armor were rushing through the tunnel into the cavern. They sent a hail of plasma bolts into the makeshift defenses, keeping the defenders pinned down.

  Moony gunned down the closest Indian soldier, then, at last, more and more plasma bolts and gauss cannon rounds crashed into the Indian soldiers. Sparing a glance along the defensive line, Moony was relieved to see that three of his secret weapons had survived the drone onslaught.

  The plasma cannons the Indian soldiers in combat armor carried were too bulky for ordinary men or women to use. Yet the Havenite fighters had still lifted them off dead Indians in the hope they could find a use for them. Moony had. In each line of defense he had six of them mounted behind heavy permasteel armored struts. The explosions from the drones had taken out three in the first defensive line. Yet the other three poured a relentless stream of bolts into the attackers, cutting down Indian soldier after Indian soldier. With the added weight of the plasma fire from the rest of the special forces marines, the first wave of Indian attackers faltered.

  That was all the defenders needed. Moony had ordered the space between the tunnel’s entrance into the cavern and the first line of defense cleared of anything that the attackers could use as cover. With nowhere to hide, the thirty or so Indian soldiers who were still standing quickly found themselves overwhelmed. With no hope of retreating back to the tunnel without being hit, they ducked behind their fallen comrades and returned fire as best they could. Havenite defenders all along the first defensive line fell to their more accurate fire.

  After the last Indian still firing was hit, a loud cheer erupted from the defenders. “We did it,” the nearest Havenit
e fighter said to Moony as he slapped him on the back. “We held them off.”

  Moony wanted to order the Havenite fighters to shut up, they clearly had no idea what they were in for. Yet, before he could, the Indians showed them. Another wave of twenty drones surged through the tunnel and fanned out, spreading across the main cavern seeking targets. It took the defenders a couple of seconds to calm down, but when they did, to a man they fired into the air, trying to shoot down the drones before they got into range to explode. Another wave of Indian soldiers charged into the cavern. Finding more than half of the Havenite defenders on their feet trying to shoot into the air, the Indians cut many of them down with their first plasma bolts.

  Even as the Havenite defenders realized was happening and brought their weapons to bear on the Indian soldiers, the drones exploded. This time every drone carried a high explosive shell and shrapnel tore into the first line of defenders.

  A familiar voice cried out in agony to Moony’s right. Glancing over, he saw Private Samuels lying on the ground. A pool of blood was spreading across the cave floor from the end of her leg where her foot used to be. The foot itself was a couple of meters away from Samuels and looked like a torn and tattered mess. One of the drones must have exploded right next to her.