by Rick Shelley
Greene stood, very slowly. For a second, he feared that his knees were going to buckle under him. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them.
“I’ve got to get some sleep,” he mumbled as he staggered off of the bridge.
Epilogue
It was three weeks later before the Second Regiment of Royal Marines left Coventry, and another month after that before the Fourth was relieved. By that time, elements of the Seventeenth Territorial Army and the 101st Air Defense Wing had been transferred to Coventry, along with an engineering battalion and nearly two hundred civilian specialists to assist the people of Coventry in rebuilding their world.
In Hawthorne, Al Bailey was one of the few survivors from the group of civilians who had tried to help fight the Federation off. His right arm had been so badly shattered by shrapnel that it had to be amputated above the elbow. That meant a long term in a trauma tube for Al while the arm was regenerated, and many months of physical therapy before the new arm was able to do everything the old one had.
Noel Wittington did not survive. Only his instinctive dive to cover the second grenade with his body had allowed any of the others with him at the wall to survive. Of the eleven men, four survived, in addition to Al Bailey.
John McGregor was buried with military honors within a mile of the place where he had died, along with the other Marines who had died in the liberation of Hawthorne. Privates Eugene Wegener and Ramsey Duncan were returned to duty following medical treatment. Private Patrick Baker was returned to Buckingham for treatment and then given medical discharge from the Royal Marines. His status as a combat veteran invalided out of His Majesty’s Combined Space Forces helped him to land a civil service job in government, Ministry of Crown Lands.
• • •
Four days after the conclusion of hostilities on Coventry, Private Geoffrey Dayle, Headquarters and Service Company, First Battalion, Second Regiment of Royal Marines, was court-martialed for killing seven Federation soldiers who had already surrendered. Seven Marine officers sat in judgement. Private Dayle refused to present any defense, even though there was a possibility of a sentence of death or life imprisonment.
The inescapable verdict was guilty. The sentence delivered was forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and immediate discharge from the Royal Marines. The discharge was issued within an hour after the verdict was rendered, less than ten minutes after Colonel Arkady Laplace, as convening officer, gave it his approval.
Geoffrey Dayle did not return to Buckingham with the regiment. He remained on Coventry, the world of his birth.
Table of Contents
Cover
ADVANCE INTO AN AMBUSH?
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
COURT NEWS TODAY
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part 2
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 3
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part 4
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part 5
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part 6
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
