“Get up, Latisha. Up. Up. Up!” She rolled over to her side, sliding her rifle beneath her to avoid it poking into one of the ribs she thought might be broken. Saikon was there, fragments of metal from the truck piercing his armor. Dark greenish blood oozed from the wounds into a street that had become drunk with the blood of its citizens. He was unconscious, but breathing, and like many of his kind a superb soldier who didn’t lose his weapon, even when the reaper came knocking.
She pressed SLAP patches onto his wounds, hoping that the nanites inside could hold him together long enough to get him to a real medic. Looking back at Toda’s squad, the medic they brought with them didn’t make it. He lay on top of the Staff Sergeant, covering him from any more projectiles should they decide to pay a visit. Even in death, there was honor. Lancers weren’t the only ones who knew brotherhood is in the company you keep and not the blood you spill.
The marshal looked like he directed most of the second salvo of rockets away from them, throwing them into the ocean far away from their position. The ones he couldn’t divert, he pulled right down on top of himself and the kid. She was dragging him behind a building, out of the line of fire.
Latisha snatched the HI-CAB, trying to shake the cobwebs loose so she could effectively use the weapon. The truck she’d been using as a firing point crashed into the side of the building, giving her more protection alongside an ample firing point. An impact next to her shook her from trying to plan how to keep the tank walker from killing all of them and getting into the depot.
“What are you doing?” Latisha said as the girl marshal slid next to her.
“Hi, I’m Bethayell. Beth for short. The Way is speaking to me. I’m supposed to keep you safe.”
“You are? Going to be a tough gig, kid. You see, I’m going to shoot at that tank so my friends can escape. Get your marshal out of here. He did what he could. I’ll hold the line.”
“Can’t. No matter how scary this is. The Crucible is showing me I have to be here, with you, Lioness.”
Latisha stared at her, trying to find words for what she was just called. Lioness. Rob told her about a marshal he worked with that had that moniker. She served in House Liau, the Athlon’s guard dogs, or cats, more to the metaphor. Why would this kid call her that? “I’m just Latisha, and you’re leaving.”
“I’m a Deputy Marshals Templar. Despite my age, I outrank you, Corporal. So here’s what I need. You send bolts down range and I’ll do what I can in the Crucible to keep us safe. Think you can get that tank driver angry enough to come after us, all close like?”
Corvin gritted her teeth. Kid was right about the rank. They’d learned that in One-Line school. Damn. “How about I cover you, and you get my friends out?”
Beth smiled into one of the holes of the wrecked pickup they were sheltering behind. She could see the tank advancing. Her eyes were enormous, as if the midmorning sun had no bearing on what they were seeing. “How about I cover you and we lure in both tanks so we can knock ’em over? Corporal, I need you to get fighting angry. Scream, yell, do whatever you have to, but you be the sword and I’ll be the shield. Roar right in its face because that’s who you really are. Together, we’ll be the rock this wave breaks on. I’m not sure how or when, but it’s the two of us straight down this thing's throat.”
There was something about her. Latisha couldn’t put her finger on it. Somehow, the kid knew something. There was a power in her voice that demanded obedience just like it demanded victory as their only outcome. Terrifying, inspiring, it was the way a leader speaks. “Alright, kid. Let’s turn this thing into scrap.”
“You had me at, ‘alright.’”
Seven
“Is there anything on the scope?” The militiaman asked his crew.
“No. The sky is clear. Has there been any word from Jabari about the other SATOs who’ve gone quiet?” asked his partner.
“Is it your job to worry about the other sites or to defend this particular one?”
“You don’t have to yell. I was just curious.”
The militia sergeant paced. “It was bad enough that soldier almost came straight at us through the other building. Unlike you, he looked like he knew what he was doing. If it weren’t for the tank, you probably would have gotten me killed.”
The junior militiaman screwed up his face, not bothering to hide his anger. “Just because you’re in charge of this SATO, doesn’t mean I won’t throw you off this roof!” He grabbed the other man by the neck and the rifle barrel, swinging him around to the ledge of the building. “I don’t have to take any of your abuse.”
A pistol rested against the junior’s head, freezing both men in their struggle. A third member of the crew had become fed up with their antics. “Jabari said we have to keep the site safe. Now if that means I have to shoot the both of you for being stupid, I will. You, let him go. You, try showing some respect. It wasn’t that long ago he kept Jabari from killing you.”
The third man looked around the roof to the gaggle acting as guards. He holstered the pistol, choosing to watch the tank slowly advance to the enemy barricade. Something was moving in the rubble that used to be the walls of the buildings. They were planning something. It wouldn’t matter. The tank would just walk on through and crush them like the pathetic infidels that they were.
The pistol wielder accepted nods of apology from both men, settling himself into lighting a cigarillo. He held the flame just away from the tip, listening to something he wasn’t sure he was hearing. “What is that strange sound?”
The roof collapsed under him, dropping him to the floor below. All the guards rushed the hole to check on their comrade. He lay in the apartment, splayed out on a couch that was as broken as he was, the smell of burning flesh wafted through the hole. Small fires were alight on the fabric of the sofa, which took nothing away from the sight of a small sword sticking out from his chest.
“Did he fall on the sword?” the junior soldier asked.
“No stupid! If he fell on the sword, it would have stabbed him from the back!”
A massive fiery spear blade wrapped in static ripped through the sergeant’s chest, causing him to arch his back from the impact. The weapon turned. launching the man over the roof. Standing behind a golden shield bearing a lion head standard was a warrior wrapped in smoking armor. His spear rested against the armored screen, crouching so that only the crimson crest on his helmet could be seen above it.
“Jump off the roof and you may die. Stay and I will kill you.” His voice sounded like the echo of four men who had worked in a smelting plant all their lives.
A soldier on the far side of the roof opened fire. It was an older blaster, but one that must have been kept in good repair, because of the way it shot and cycled for the next trigger pull. Older blasters that were treated badly had discharge problems, sometimes jamming or hanging between shots. This one seemed more than serviceable along with the shooter whose aim was on point.
It didn’t matter. Marco rolled along the roof, using the shield for cover, and letting the soldier walk his fire right into two of his friends. The rest tried to scatter to the far corners. The lion jumped to his feet, ripping one of the men closest to him in half with his lance. The butcher knife shaped blade met no resistance as the plasma corona carved through flesh and flak jacket easily. The cut changed direction, rotating in the marshal’s hands into a throw across the roof at a soldier on the far corner. Taking one of the newly vacated spots, he pulled his pistol.
The devilish weapon barked, dispensing a three round burst that tore through another of the fighters. He fell into the one behind him, who started screaming while trying to find a way off the cursed roof. The militiaman threw himself behind the missile system, hoping the grim reaper’s tax collector wouldn’t try to shoot through it. The hell hound pistol raged again, dropping more of the men into the street.
Heavy footsteps rounded the air defense system, indifferent to the sobbing soldier who kicked away his own rifle. The warrior yanked
his spear free, collapsing it to a quarter of its length.
“Please, sir. Don’t kill me with your spear.”
“It’s a lance. I promise, if you come out of there right now I won’t kill you with it.”
The whimpering soldier came from under the control station, his hands held tightly in front of him. His head was down, his shoulder forward, affecting the mannerism of a beaten dog standing on two legs.
Marco said nothing as he kicked the man square in the chest, launching him from the roof. The plummeting soldier hit his back on one of the broken ledges of the other building, landing in the alley with a wet splat.
Panting, Marco keyed their com, “Ares, last of my sites is under control. You should have command access.”
“I do. Drafting coordinates to the last three ADA sites now. I’ll take them out on your go.”
“Thank you, Ares. Jax?”
“Coming up from behind you,” Jax's said in the HUD.
Marco, nodded, dropping through the hole in the roof. He recovered his sword in one motion, pulling his pistol from its holster with another. The half chrome, blacked out weapon was elegantly malicious looking, as if death was wearing a nice suit to reap your soul. Switching to single shot, its heavy recoil sent a hyper-kinetic slug into the wall, followed by another. The rounds fractured the stone with spiderweb cracks that went from floor to ceiling, blowing out huge chunks for him to see through. Across the alley in the next building several soldiers had entered the room, trying to ascertain what had happened to the gun team protecting the stairwell. They never saw the threat that ended them.
Marco leaped through the crumble, trailing dust across the alley in midair. He landed amid men trying to figure out if this was a friend in the form of a mercenary captain, or foe working for the Force Majeure. Swinging the pistol into the jaw of the closest fighter gave them their answer. His skull crumbled under the impact, causing his feet and face to switch places. The abrupt change in stance tripped a nearby soldier into the crested warrior’s path. He kicked out the militant’s knee, the pain forcing him to reach toward the ruined joint. The well dressed death pistol came rushing into the top of the man’s crown, crushing it under the handle. He lowered the barrel ever so slightly, sending another round into an opponent at the end of the room.
Three other militiamen opened fire, sending a mix of sluggers and blaster bolts into the corner. The golden shield rolled off his shoulder, absorbing kinetic and energy based attacks alike along a shimmering field of hexagonal waves. A burst left the pistol, blowing one of his opponents clear through the doorway. Another attempted to jump through the exit, only to have his torso bisected by the devil warrior’s weapon. The last one remaining, fell to the floor behind some broken furniture, frantically trying to ram a new energy magazine into the mag-well. Marco kicked the broken thing into him, forcing his head up. It was there for a fraction of a second, then a bark from his pistol painted the wall with its contents.
Rapid cycling blaster fire sounded outside the window. He got up, looking between slats of the board nailed to the frame. A single soldier was darting back and forth from positions, fighting off the ZX-33. Return fire from the rotary cannons were deflected in every direction by the kid. If it wasn’t Bethayell taking the fight to the mech. Sword and Shield technique, a classic lancer tactic for taking down larger opponents. This was the roar he heard in the Crucible. It was this rage that woke him to his old self.
The soldier hefted a Dust Devil, smacking the armor with a High Explosive, Dual Purpose shell. The floor rattled under his feet as one of the boards was blown clear from the sill. A high powered grenade wouldn’t be enough. That HI-CAB she was using wouldn’t be enough. These were cubs.
“Jax?”
“On your six, coming up behind them. You jumping in?”
“Soon. Ares, take out the last three SATOs and give Athena the go.”
Marco threw a handful of discs at the wall. They stuck to the stone, pinging to life with a little red light in the center. He went through the room, making a path by kicking bodies, or parts of them, out of the way. Backing into the hallway, he brought up a display in his HUD. The mini-mines were showing up in his network, armed and ready to blow. The wall to his front became translucent in the display, showing the massive Scorpion Tank bearing down on the two lion cubs. A second tank was coming in perpendicular to the first, cycling its power core to fuel a different array of weapons.
Marco sent a thought out, deep and far into the Crucible, to the hottest part of the liquid fabric that was the universe. A single snarl, only audible to the corded, only heard by the pride.
“D! Get them out of here! Me and Marshal Junior are going to wreck this thing!”
Corporal Harlan pulled the last trooper from her side of the wreckage. “Rolling withdrawal, Teesha! Get ready to move!”
“Negative! Pull out. The kid’s got a plan.” She stopped talking to lay down a burst, running into the building where the PPC was located. Gunning from the reinforced downstairs wall, she sent alternating bursts into the vehicle. One would smack the sensor suite. Even if they were armored, the cam getting knocked around would still throw off the driver. After causing a ton of static in their field of view, she lobbed a burst at the vehicle’s feet, destabilizing the dusty, easily cracked street. Unlike most civilized places, Dagoshu paved using concrete versus hardened carcrete which had a tendency to stand up to standard blaster fire. Shifting back and forth between targets must have given the pilot vertigo as the vehicle lost its footing into one of the broken apartments.
“How are you holding up?” Corvin asked.
Beth looked ferocious but tired. “I’ll manage. We need to hold out a little longer.”
“Just out of curiosity, what is the Crucible showing you?”
“We hold the line.”
Latisha smiled back to the Deputy. She let loose another alternating burst, but the pilot anticipated the trick, jumping back from the low attack. He responded by trying to cut out the offending women with the rotary cannons. Beth forced the rounds around them, sending them down the street, out over the beach. Both women were spent. Corporal Corvin slapped another drum into the HI-CAB. The Deputy focused her attention back to the tank, wiping the blood pouring from her nose.
“You can’t take much more of this!” Latisha souted.
“Watch me.”
Grand Marshal Peletier walked into the Shield Chamber, the home of the council in the Athalon temple. The assembled High Marshals were riveted to a holo display playing out across the room. “High Marshal Tabor, what is this?”
The Saedorin Marshal rose from his seat onto legs that put him closer to the ceiling than anyone else in the room. “We received word that Marshal Brand arrived in Dagoshu. He and his deputy were about to augment the defensive line when the warlord sent in two ZX-33s. They’re taking an awful pounding while the company is doing their best to protect the supply depot with the rest of their compliment. The fighting is intensifying as Sorkabi forces try and oust the Nakabwe. Sorkabi is making a play for the city.”
A slow heavy breath, loud enough to be heard in the expansive chamber, hissed from the senior marshal. She looked to the back of the chamber, to a marshal that was leaning against one of the walls. “I thought I told him not to go into that mess, that it was not an Athalon matter.”
The marshal perched in the shade was smooth in his response. “I have no excuse for him, Grand Marshal. With as many blows to the head as he’s taken, I wouldn’t consider his actions as criminal disregard of your orders, ma’am.”
“Be that as it may, switch that off. Leave him to his fate.” Peletier demanded.
“Belay that order” came a voice through the chamber. The woman wielding it was tall, powerfully built, almost as if she was born to war. Her hair was done in neat cornrows that cascaded over her armor, spilling over the black and gold braided cords on her right shoulder.
The grand marshal slithered around the table like a Sulmari Grapple Snake
. “Force Commander Liau, please explain yourself.”
“My apologies, Grand Marshal. I sense a pattern in the Crucible forming around this event.”
“And I see you’ve brought half of the Lion contingent here to watch it. My order still stands, Force Commander. Explain yourself.”
Alessandra Liau, granddaughter to the progenitor of the Lions of Athalon, Aleksander Liau, looked like a hunting cat kept too long at the zoo. The Lions were known for being highly combative. It was practically bred into their nature. At this moment, the Force Commander was barely restraining her contempt toward the Grand Marshal. “In matters where the Crucible directs my attention...”
Peletier stalked up to the larger woman, shoving the full authority of her position between them. “I know the Way, and the Law, Force Commander. My position was installed so that there would be a balance between the Shield Circle and the Lions. I can speak for both of you and answer only to the Prime Minister himself. What I don’t need is you and your entourage stalking in here, making demands.”
“And what I don’t need, ma’am,” Liau said the last word as though she had just sank her teeth into rotten meat, “is your permission for anything I do here. If I feel the Crucible led me into this room for the good of the Temple to watch that screen, me and mine are going to stand here and do it. And you will stand there and let me.”
Peletier seethed. “Be warned Lioness, you are treading dangerously close to insubordination. I could pull your family’s charter and toss you out with a stroke of a pen.”
Liau lowered herself to the woman’s height, dropping nearly a third of a meter to do it so she could whisper into her ear. “And by the Law, I could pull off your head with a stroke of my sword.”
The Sentinel: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Hunter's Moon Book 3) Page 9
