The crosshairs settled over the target. Time seemed to slow as Kydd’s right index finger began to squeeze the trigger, then there was the moment of release as the rifle butt kicked his shoulder, and the weapon released a bang so loud it made his ears ring. That was when the heavy slug plowed through the air, Kydd realized he had forgotten to put his earplugs in, and his right hand worked the bolt as if it was operating without input from his brain.
Then the bullet was there, striking the Kel-Morian guerilla behind the left knee, where his armor was weakest. It wasn’t a lethal shot, nor was it intended to be. Kydd’s FN92 ammo was designed to pierce armor, but the sniper didn’t want to take unnecessary chances. His mission was to bring the enemy soldiers down and bring them down fast. The slug smashed through armor, destroyed the Kel-Morian’s knee joint, and bounced off the rounded cap designed to protect him from frontal shots.
As the soldier fell, his self-sealing suit was already injecting painkillers into his bloodstream and applying a tourniquet to his lower leg. So by the time he rolled down the slope to the bottom of the hill he was out of action for good.
But Kydd wasn’t thinking about the first Kel-Morian anymore. He was focused on the third, and lost in the aim-fire-reload sequence of what he was not only doing, but doing well. Better than he’d done in school, better than he’d done working for his father part-time, and better than he had ever hoped to do. And it felt good, very good, as the fourth target fell and he forced himself to pause.
“Save the last round long enough to look around,” Sergeant Peters had told him. “Because some bastard could be closing in on you. Then, if it’s safe to do so, take your final shot before loading the next magazine.”
Kydd scanned, came up empty, and fired. The target wasn’t wearing armor this time and his head blossomed into a bloody mist. Kydd barely noticed. A killer had been born.
It had taken the better part of fifteen long minutes for Raynor and Harnack to get all the other marines into position in and around the farm’s outbuildings. Such a thing would have been impossible had the Kel-Morian overseer placed some soldiers north of his armored personnel carriers. But, having met only minimal resistance as he swept into the area at the base of the hill, and eager to take Firebase Zulu quickly, the overseer had apparently chosen to send all his troops against the objective.
Now, as Raynor prepared to lead his fellow marines into battle, he suddenly felt short of breath, his heart racing. He was frightened—not for his own safety, but because of his lack of experience and the possibility that he might screw up. So it took an act of will to emerge from hiding, wave his troops forward, and shout: “Follow me!”
Two fire teams remained behind to provide covering fire. The rest of the marines charged across the intervening space, firing as they ran. All of the Kel-Morian turret gunners were shooting uphill. That left their lightly armored backs exposed, and two died almost immediately as slugs ripped into them from behind.
Then the marines were on three of the vehicles, shooting down into the compartments below, but they lacked enough manpower to tackle the rest. The Kel-Morians turned all of their weapons on the captured personnel carriers, and Raynor saw three of the marines closest to the enemy swept away by a hail of spikes. His heart sank. Was Omer one of them?
Enraged, Raynor climbed up onto the nearest carrier and jerked a dead gunner up out of her firing position. Projectiles pinged, spanged, and rattled as they peppered the metal around him. Having dropped into the blood-splashed turret, Raynor placed both boots on the shiny pedals below. There was a satisfying whine as the double-barreled weapon swung around and came to bear on the enemy. The KMs saw the threat, and Raynor felt his anger turn into fear as the vehicle took hit after hit.
That was when Raynor thumbed both triggers and sent parallel streams of spikes toward the carriers that were still under KM control. The overlapping explosions merged to produce a continuous roar of sound as the devastating rounds ate their way through layers of neosteel armor to seek out the ammo bins within.
Raynor’s entire body was shaking in reaction to the adrenaline pumping through it. He was shouting words he couldn’t understand and wondering if the moment would ever end. Then came an earthshaking CRUMP! as a pillar of fire propelled the top of the enemy vehicle fifteen feet into the air, where it appeared to hang momentarily before crashing down.
Raynor sensed movement to his right, swiveled his weapons in that direction, and was preparing to open fire on a new target when a much-amplified voice was heard. “This is Zulu-Six… . Hold your fire! The battle is over.”
It took a moment to process the officer’s words, but once he did, Raynor pushed himself up and out of the turret. He looked around at the scene. The few remaining Kel-Morian soldiers were being disarmed and taken into Confed custody.
Raynor took a deep breath as he looked down at his hands. They were smeared with blood. He wiped them on his pants but the red stuff wouldn’t come off.
Then, as Raynor surveyed the scene around him, he was overwhelmed with guilt. Both the area around the vehicles and the hillside above it were strewn with dead bodies. An empty feeling flooded the pit of his stomach, and Raynor was forced to reswallow a portion of his lunch. He took a quick look around, fearful that someone had spotted his weakness, and was glad to see that his friends were busy with other things as he jumped to the ground and ran to the point where he thought he’d seen Omer go down.
The ground around Omer was covered with blood. Plastiscab battle dressings covered one side of his chest, and the lower part of the soldier’s left arm was missing. One of the firebase’s medics was working on him, and Raynor could tell that the painkillers had kicked in, because Omer smiled dreamily as he looked up. “One battle … that’s all I was good for. Now they’re probably gonna send me home.”
“Maybe not … I’m sure they can patch you right up.” Raynor smiled. “Your parents will be proud,” Raynor said, as he knelt next to his friend. “Real proud.”
Omer frowned. “I was scared, Jim… . Were you scared?”
“I was very scared. I think I crapped my pants.”
Omer managed a laugh. “I’ll tell your parents about everything.”
“Tell them about boot camp,” Raynor responded. “But not about this.”
“No,” Omer replied soberly. “I won’t tell them about this.”
As Omer was carried away, Raynor heard the whine of servos and the thump of heavy feet. He turned to face a suit of battle-scarred armor. There was a soft hiss as the visor opened and a man peered at Raynor. He had blue eyes, and deep creases bracketed both sides of his mouth. “I’m Captain Senko—otherwise known as Zulu-Six. Are you Zulu-Two-Three by any chance?”
Raynor nodded.
“I thought so… . You and your team did a good job. A real good job.”
“Thank you, sir… . I’ll pass that along.” The officer turned to leave. “Sir?” Raynor broke in. “How many people did we lose? Or is it too early to say?”
Senko placed an enormous hand on Raynor’s shoulder. It felt heavy. “The same as always, son … we lost too damned many.”
And that, Raynor discovered over the next few hours, was absolutely true.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Any member of the armed services caught removing military assets from a government installation without sanction will be tried as an enemy agent and subject to the death penalty.”
From section 14:76.2 of the Confederate Uniform Code of Military Justice
FORT HOWE, ON THE PLANET TURAXIS II
More than a week had passed since Tychus had been released from Military Correctional Facility-R-156 and ordered back to duty. It had been a tough three months, but that was behind him now as a dropship named Fat Girl skimmed over what had been the city of Whitford, and Tychus took the opportunity to eyeball the ruins through an open side door. The slipstream blasted his face and forced him to retreat. But not before he caught a glimpse of devastated buildings, cratered streets, and bu
rned-out vehicles all laid out on a tidy grid.
Whitford had been overrun by what the press liked to refer to as “the breakout.” Although Tychus thought it was more like a break-in, since the Kel-Morians had been able to fight their way through Hobber’s Gap and lay waste to an area between Burr’s Crossing to the south and an outpost called Firebase Zulu up north.
But what they hadn’t been able to do was overrun Fort Howe. That was the home of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, also known as “the Thundering Third.” The battalion had not only pushed the KMs out of Whitford and back toward the mountains, it was currently following the enemy home.
In the meantime Tychus was about to join the 3rd Battalion’s holding company at Fort Howe, where, with any luck at all, he would be able to return to work on Operation Early Retirement. A much-neglected aspect of the war effort that Tychus hoped to refocus his attention on.
The transport began to slow a few minutes later, circled the base below, and lowered itself onto the main landing pad of a starport. The dropship carried eleven other passengers, replacements mostly, who would soon become members of the Thundering Third. They were already pulling their belongings together as the skids touched down and a green light appeared.
When the ramp was extended, Tychus followed a couple officers and some noncoms onto the pad. Once there, he was struck by the fact that, except for one other ship, the area in front of the starport structure was empty! A sure sign that most of the battalion was elsewhere.
All of his original gear had been lost during the transfer from Prosser’s Well to MCF-R-156. So all Tychus had to carry was his duffel bag containing some extra underwear and a Dopp kit. Tychus entered the starport to get directions to the admin building and went back outside to wait for an open-sided jitney.
The five-minute ride served to confirm his initial impression: Fort Howe had been stripped of troops in order to battle the Kel-Morians off to the east. A barracks building had lifted off the ground and was in the process of being repositioned, and the occasional squad could be seen double-timing from one location to the next. But the facility had an empty feel.
He entered the admin building and discovered that half the people who had been on the dropship with him were already there—and lined up in front of a single sergeant who was doggedly working to help them. So a good forty-five minutes passed before it was Tychus’s turn to belly up to the counter and surrender the chip containing his personnel file and his orders.
The clerk assigned Tychus to holding company Echo, scheduled him for a medical exam, and a follow-up appointment with Fort Howe’s “morale” officer. Meaning a shrink who among other things was charged with keeping track of marines fresh out of a military correctional facility.
Having completed those arrangements and assigned Tychus to the barracks where Echo Company was quartered, the sergeant looked up at Tychus with strangely soulless eyes. Was it because the guy was a stylus-pushing rear-echelon functionary? Or was it something else? Whatever it was came across as kind of spooky. “That should take care of it, Private… . Check the monitor in your quarters for chow times.”
“How ’bout some gear?” Tychus demanded. “I lost everything I had at my last duty station. All I have is a change of underwear.”
That problem lay outside the realm of the expected, so the sergeant frowned disapprovingly and tapped a series of keys. Then, having found the necessary entry on the screen in front of him, the frown disappeared. “Here we are,” the clerk said apologetically. “You are authorized to receive a full issue. I missed that, for which I sincerely apologize.”
Tychus’s eyebrows rose. An apology? From a clerk? And a sergeant at that? That was downright weird. “Take this over to Supply Depot 7,” the clerk said, as he passed a chip across the counter. “Give it to the person on duty. They will take care of you.”
After exiting the admin building and catching another jitney ride, Tychus got off across from a low, one-story, metal-clad supply depot with a big white supply depot 7 painted on the front. Heat shimmered as it rose from the concrete, a dropship roared as it passed overhead, and a file of sweat-soaked marines jogged past. They were singing, “One, two, three, four—I love the Marine Corps.”
Tychus knew it was a lie as he made his way toward the supply depot. The homely structure was protected by a defensive blast wall. Not far away, to either side of the structure, two missile turrets sat poised to defend the base against enemy aircraft.
In order to reach the front door, Tychus had to walk a zigzag course between prefab obstacles. It was five degrees cooler inside the building, and Tychus was reminded of Gunnery Sergeant Sims and the supply depot full of Kel-Morian supplies back on Raydin III. Had Sims and Calvin been able to sell off some of the war booty before the logistics team arrived? No, he thought, not without a customer!
That thought made Tychus feel better as he crossed a spacious waiting area to the counter that separated him from long rows of storage racks beyond. Two-person teams could be seen in the back, pulling items off of shelves and scanning them.
A lance corporal was positioned under a sign that read new issue, and nodded as Tychus approached. “Morning … what can I do for you?”
“All my gear was lost in transit from one duty station to another,” Tychus explained. “They told me to report here to receive a new issue. Here’s my A-chip.”
The lance corporal looked young and had probably been in the marines for a year or so, given his rank. He passed the chip by a scanner, eyed the results, and nodded agreeably. “Yup, you’re authorized for a new issue, all right … but we’re in the middle of an inventory at the moment. Come back at 1400 hours and we’ll fix you up.”
Tychus frowned, put both fists on the counter, and leaned forward. “I have a better idea… . Why don’t you, or one of your supply weenies, draw my gear right now? Because I don’t feel like coming back at 1400 hours—or any other time for that matter! Do you scan me?”
“Oh, I scan you all right,” Lance Corporal Jim Raynor replied calmly. “Only trouble is that you have me confused with someone who gives a crap. Private.”
Tychus was momentarily stunned as the other man mirrored his posture, eyes narrowed, looking straight at him. When confronted with his overwhelming size, most people took two involuntary steps backward. But this marine hadn’t flinched, and showed no signs of backing off. Having put himself on a limb, Tychus had no choice but to reach both hands across the counter and grab a generous handful of the other man’s shirt. He gave it a twist for emphasis. Tychus scowled as the marine’s eyes drifted toward his tattooed knuckles. “That’s right, boy. P-A-I-N, something you’re about to become very familiar with,” Tychus growled. “Now, maybe I wasn’t clear… . Get my stuff, and bring it here, or I will rip your fekkin’ head off and piss in the hole!”
That was when Tychus felt something hard jab the back of his skull, heard the familiar click-clack sound, and knew someone was holding a shotgun to his head. “That’s one possibility,” a third voice drawled, “or I could blow your head off and check to see if there’s anything inside. My guess is no.”
Tychus was still holding a fistful of shirt as the lance corporal smiled slowly. “I would listen to Private Harnack if I were you,” the marine said reasonably. “He shot three Kel-Morians last week—so he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Of course, it’s hard to tell where Hank’s concerned.”
Tychus was furious, but, determined not to let his emotions show, he released his grip. Then, having snatched the A-chip back, he turned to go. The red-haired marine, with his supercilious smile still firmly in place, stood well out of reach. A rectangle of bright sunlight beckoned—and Tychus made for it. A skirmish had been lost—but the battle was far from over.
THE RAFFIN BROTHERS MINE NEAR FORT HOWE ON THE PLANET TURAXIS II
The Kel-Morian rippers had been living deep underground for six days. The main chamber was lit with emergency lanterns, and strings of lights crisscrossed the area
above. Power was supplied by a generator that had been liberated from the Confeds and brought down into the mine.
Dozens of matte black powered combat suits lined the walls. Soldiers sat in small groups talking, gambling, or fine-tuning various pieces of equipment. They wore every scrap of clothing they had, because despite the meager heat emanating from a few jury-rigged heaters, it was cold in the mine.
Foreman Oleg Benson didn’t know very much about the mine, and didn’t need to know anything more than the fact that it had been abandoned at some point, and was deep enough to hide in. He sat off by himself, as befitted a Kel-Morian foreman, sucking on an unlit pipe and wondering how much longer he and his men would be required to wait. One day? Two? Certainly no more than that, because he and his troops were running short of food.
But if his superior’s plan was successful, Benson and his rippers would play a pivotal role in one of the most daring raids of the war. Because the mine was only a few miles east of Fort Howe, which, having been stripped of troops, was ripe for the plucking. And in more ways than one.
Because once Benson and his grunts overran the base and secured a landing zone for an airborne assault team flown in from the east, there would be ample opportunity to loot the base. An activity Overseer Scaggs not only approved of, but insisted upon!
It was Scaggs who had the clarity to see an opportunity for victory and sent the rippers into hiding even as the marines from Fort Howe pushed Kel-Morian forces toward the east. A move that could convert a loss into a victory if successful. A group of guerillas began to sing and Benson smiled.
FORT HOWE, ON THE PLANET TURAXIS II
After grudgingly returning to collect his new gear from the supply depot at 1400 hours, Tychus was about to go to chow, when a cute, ginger-haired corporal on a motorized cart arrived in front of the barracks. “Is Private Findlay here?” she asked sweetly as she hopped out.
Tychus ran his eyes up and down the corporal’s petite, curvy frame. “Who’s asking?”
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