Rebellion

by Edward M. Grant

  Logan ducked low over the horse’s neck, and the girl leaned over him. The horse was panting hard now, and beginning to slow. After running for so long, how did it have any energy left? Its hooves continued to hammer the ground, but the pace grew slower with every second.

  Logan kicked the horse’s side, willing it to move faster. But there was only so much it could do, after the long run from the mine. It needed a break.

  Upended trees lay on top of each other at the entrance to the village, blocking the wide main street that ran between two rows of houses. More trees lay on their side on the approach to the village, two directly across the track in front of the street, two more at an angle on each side.

  Logan gave up on trying to weave as they approached the barricades, and let the horse make its own way as fast as it could. But more rifle rounds hit the ground ahead of them.

  Every second put more distance between the horse and the Panzergrenadiers and Montagnards. But it reduced the distance to the Legion.

  And now they were firing at him.

  “1st Company,” Logan called over the company net. “It’s Legionnaire McCoy. I’m approaching on a horse. Don’t shoot me, you stupid bastards.”

  The fire lessened. A few more rounds came from the village, then they stopped.

  “Relax, boys,” a voice said on the net, and laughed. “The cavalry is here.”

  An RPG round slammed into the ground to Logan’s right and exploded, spraying dirt into the air around them. The horse reared and twisted at the noise, and the flying dirt that smacked against its body.

  Logan clung to the horse with his legs, released the rifle and pulled on the reins, trying to get the animal to calm down. The girl squealed behind him as the horse’s front legs kicked the air, and it turned on the spot.

  A grenade exploded behind them, and that gave the horse an incentive to run on.

  It raced toward the first tree-trunk barricade as another grenade exploded to the left, and chunks of bark erupted from the tree trunks as stray rifle rounds hammered into them.

  Logan hung on as the horse jumped the barricade. Its hooves clattered against the tree trunks as it barely passed over them, then slammed down on the far side. Just a few seconds now to the final barricade.

  The Legionnaires who were crouched in cover behind the houses stood and stepped out, firing their rifles non-stop toward the Montagnards and Panzergrenadiers, spraying rounds past each side of the horse to keep their heads down.

  Then the horse jerked beneath Logan.

  He yelled as it lowered its head, then tumbled forward as its legs collapsed beneath it. He flew from the saddle, his left leg twisting until it slid free from the stirrup, then he slammed into the ground three metres from the tree trunks.

  He tumbled with the impact, rolling aside just as the horse’s body slammed down into the dirt beside him. Blood gushed from a deep wound in its side.

  Nicole crawled away from the horse as its hindquarters twisted and its legs kicked hard, barely missing her. It tried to twist back onto its feet, but that just caused more blood to gush from the wound.

  Logan grabbed Nicole’s hand. “Come on.”

  “We can’t just leave her.”

  Logan pulled Nicole toward him. “She’s done. We’re not. Come on, before it’s too late.” He pushed her to her feet. “Stay low, and move fast.”

  She turned to look back at the wounded horse, but he pushed her on, and followed as close behind her as he could. Another grenade exploded behind them. He winced as a chunk of hot shrapnel impaled itself in his leg.

  The horse gave out a deep, rattly groan. Logan glanced back as he pushed Nicole through a gap between the barricades. Shrapnel had torn more bloody wounds in the horse’s side, and its head slumped to the ground. It whinnied one last time, then its head fell to the ground, and the body went still.

  A metal hand grabbed Logan’s body armour, and pulled him around the barricade.

  “Crazy son of a bitch,” a voice said.

  “Keep that chatter off the platoon net,” Volkov said.

  Nicole limped away from the barricade, toward the nearest building in the street. Logan limped behind her, still wincing every time his leg muscles pressed against the jagged shrapnel.

  Nicole slumped down on the steps in front of the building. Incoming rifle rounds slammed into the dirt piled over the roof, but were well above their heads as they crouched. Logan sat down beside her, and twisted his leg around to expose the shrapnel that protruded from his thigh. It wasn’t much larger than a nail, but hurt like a knife. Fortunately, it was buried in the muscle, nowhere near a vital blood vessel.

  “Are you OK?” he said.

  “I think I twisted something when I fell.”

  Logan pulled on the shrapnel.

  He gritted his teeth as a centimetre of bloody metal emerged from the leg of his fatigues, then another. Another centimetre came out before it finally slid free, and he tossed it aside. Blood oozed out of his leg. He pulled a bandage from the first-aid kit on his belt, and wrapped it around the wound.

  Nicole stared back toward the barricade. “Did they...?”

  “Sorry. Your horse is gone. One of the grenades hit her after we ran. But she did good. We wouldn’t be here without her.”

  Logan looked around the village as he worked on his leg. The Legionnaires had constructed a hasty defensive position there. The men who didn’t have buildings, barricades, or rocks to hide behind crouched in rough slit trenches, only emerging from them to fire their weapons.

  Even Poulin had a rifle. She lay beside a building, partially hidden behind a rock, and fired randomly around it down the hillside. She might not hit anything, but hopefully she could help keep their heads down.

  Mortar bombs or rockets had exploded around the streets, scattering small, twisted chunks of torn metal that protruded from the buildings and the remaining trees around him.

  A few of the mortar bombs must have dug into the ground when they landed, and left craters a metre deep and a couple of metres across. At least the craters might provide some free cover for the Legionnaires.

  “Let’s find somewhere safer for you to sit,” Logan said.

  He helped Nicole to her feet, and they limped along the street together, crouching below the erratic, incoming rifle fire. The girl winced every time a grenade exploded, but Logan just pulled her on faster behind him. The sooner she could get safely into a building, the better.

  The flagpole was on their right, still flying proudly above the roofs of the nearby buildings. Logan led Nicole on into an alleyway between the buildings, heading toward the flag. The village square opened out at the end of the alley, surrounded by long, low buildings protected by more barricades of tree trunks and dirt.

  Moans and yells came from the building on their left. Logan steered her that way, and peered inside. Wounded men lay on bloodstained straw that covered the dirt floor as the platoon medics swarmed around them. A civilian man and two women assisted, but barely glanced up as he entered.

  Logan helped Nicole into the impromptu aid station. One of the women grabbed her, and led her to an empty patch of straw in the corner.

  “I’ll be alright,” Nicole said. “I can help them in here.”

  Logan nodded.

  “Go for it.”

  She’d be safe for now. Hopefully. Only a direct hit from a rocket was likely to damage the building.

  Of course, she might not be so safe if the Panzergrenadiers and their friends won the battles.

  So he’d better make sure that didn’t happen.

  “Get everyone we can spare to the west flank,” Merle said.

  “Sir, it’s Legionnaire McCoy. Can I help?”

  “About time we got reinforcements. Where are the others?”

  “Gallo is KIA, sir. Desoto and Bairamov are MIA. Do you have a suit I can use?”

  “What the hell happened to yours?” Volkov said. “Did your girlfriend steal it?”

  “I fell off a cliff, s
ir. I had to abandon it.”

  “McCoy. For the first time since I joined the Legion, I am honestly speechless. If I survive this battle, I’ll be telling this story for decades to come.”

  Another voice joined the net. Joffer. “Got a salvaged suit over by the village hall. Last guy’s in the aid station, he didn’t mess it up too bad.”

  “Try not to lose that one, McCoy.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Joffer was correct. The suit wasn’t that badly damaged. If you didn’t count the ten-centimetre diameter hole in the lower back, and the much narrower entrance wound in the front. No wonder the last guy wasn’t using it any more. Logan would be safe enough, though. Unless he decided to run away from the fight, and expose the hole.

  And he had no plans to turn his back on these people.

  The sun rose over the hills as Logan clambered into the open back of the suit, and slid into his seat in the frame. Red smears of blood coated the suit’s HUD. Logan wiped them away with the side of his hand, and adjusted the blood-stained straps until they held him tightly in the suit’s frame.

  “Suit, load settings Logan McCoy.”

  “Confirmed. Settings loaded.”

  “Alice. When will the Marine LePen be in range?”

  “One hour and thirty-eight minutes to next orbital pass with a firing solution.”

  Just over an hour and a half, and the Marine LePen could make the Panzergrenadiers and Montagnards regret that they’d ever been born. But could the platoon last that long?

  “Alice, seal up.”

  The back of the suit whirred closed behind him. The sounds of gunfire and explosions faded as the back clunked shut.

  “Suit damage prevents airtight seal,” the suit said.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t need one tonight.

  Logan grabbed the gaussrifle that leaned against the wall of the village hall beside the suit. The magazine was half-full. The suit froze for a split second as he tried to straighten up, while red lights flashed on the HUD. Then it moved again.

  Great.

  Whatever had hit the suit had screwed up the exoskeleton. But it would have to do.

  “McCoy, you ready yet?” Volkov said.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be, sir.”

  “Join up with Charlie team on the west flank. They need all the help they can get right now.”

  Mortar bombs whistled toward the village.

  Guns chattered around the village square in front of the hall, and some of the bombs exploded in mid-air. Others came down intact. Dirt sprayed into the air in the middle of the square as a mortar bomb exploded there, and shrapnel rattled off the side of Logan’s suit.

  The men had barricaded the square almost as well as they’d barricaded the entrance to the village. No wonder they decided to put the aid station there.

  Slit trenches surrounded the village hall itself, deep enough for a suit to crouch in without being seen, or stand in to shoot out. Tree trunks blocked the streets and alleys that led into the square, with only small gaps for men to pass by.

  But a suit could still jump over them logs, if it had to. If the Panzergrenadiers came charging in, the barricades wouldn’t provide much protection against them.

  Charlie team’s position appeared on the HUD. Logan jogged out of the square as more dirt and shrapnel tapped against the suit, then turned right along the town’s main street.

  “I hear I got some new blood,” a voice said on the team net. Kader, according to the HUD.

  “McCoy, sir. I’m on my way.”

  A shower of dirt erupted from the building to Logan’s left as he jogged along the street.

  The grenades that were hitting the buildings might not hurt those inside, but they’d eventually blow their way through the roofs if the Panzergrenadiers kept firing them.

  Rifle rounds cracked through the air as Logan approached the western perimeter. He crouched and stayed in the cover of the buildings as much as he could, but the fire grew ever more intense. The insurgents must be throwing everything they could spare at that flank.

  He took cover behind the building for a few seconds until the rifle fire lessened, then ran to the next. A grenade exploded on the far side of the building, just behind Charlie team. Kader raised a grenade launcher, and it popped as it fired a burst back the other way. An autocannon boomed as it fired beside him.

  Three men leaned around piled tree trunks in the middle of the road, firing rifles. Beyond them the HUD showed a mass of red squares, at least a dozen insurgents tagged as coming their way. Kader crouched beside another torn down tree trunk on the right, and the remaining man in Charlie team fired the autocannon over it.

  Logan dropped to the ground, and crawled past the front of the building as fast as the suit’s metal knees and elbows could carry him. He could hear the rifle rounds slamming into the tree trunks as he crawled toward them, and crawled across to the right of the autocannon.

  He leaned around the right side of the trunk, to fire past the hacked-up remains of the roots toward the Montagnards who were crawling their way. One dropped his rifle as Logan fired a burst his way, then grabbed it and rolled back behind a rock.

  “What happened?” Logan said.

  “We were scouting out the area around where the bastards launched the mortar attacks from the other day,” Kader said, then fired another burst from the grenade launcher. “And these guys had an ambush lined up for us. We lost half of 3rd section before Volkov got us out of there. We fought our way up here, pulled down the trees for some kind of defence, and we’ve been fighting off their attacks ever since.”

  “What about the civilians?”

  “Most of them got out of here as fast as they could. A few wouldn’t go, and some stayed to help out. Poor bastards.”

  Rifle rounds hammered into the tree trunk barricade, and Logan rolled back behind it.

  A grenade slammed down and exploded, showering him with splinters and chunks of wood. He held out the rifle at arm’s length, aiming it between the roots, and looking through the sights on his HUD.

  “What the hell are they trying to do?”

  “I figure they thought they’d get us all in the ambush. Might have done too, if Volkov hadn’t got us moving out of there as fast as we could go. Now they’re in the shit. We’re hitting them hard, and they won’t get a chance like this again if they retreat.”

  “They’ll still get us if we don’t get more support soon.”

  Logan leaned around the trunk again. A Montagnard was running between rocks, heading toward the barricade. Logan fired a burst, and blood exploded from the man’s legs. The man fell as his legs collapsed beneath him, and crawled behind the rock, dragging the bloody mess of his left calf behind him.

  The autocannon fired above Logan as he leaned back while incoming rounds tore up the dirt beside the tree. Kader fired another burst of grenades, then stopped to reload the launcher with a magazine from the ground beside him.

  Grenades exploded behind them, and shrapnel rattled from the back of Logan’s suit. The early morning sunlight reflected from chunks of shrapnel that had embedded themselves in the tree trunks of the barricade.

  Something slammed to the ground beside him. A suit rolled on the ground, with the left hand missing.

  The autocannon gunner.

  “Medic,” a voice yelled over the net.

  “On my way,” Heinrichs said.

  Kader reloaded the launcher and raised the muzzle above the barricade. “Just you and me left, kid. Get on the autocannon, and give the bastards hell.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Logan knelt behind the autocannon and grabbed the hand grips with the metal fingers of his suit. Blood was still splattered across them from the hit on the last gunner. Rifle rounds hammered into the plasteel shield that stretched a metre in each direction around the cannon barrel.

  He kept his head low, but the gun sight was just a hazy mess, probably badly damaged by the same rounds that hit the gunner. He peered through the narrow gap in the shi
eld above the cannon’s thick barrel, but it barely gave him enough space to see where it might hit when he fired.

  The Montagnards were still moving forward, and four of the Panzergrenadiers were approaching with them.

  The Panzergrenadiers’ suits had turned green, grey and brown to match the terrain they were crawled up toward the barricade, but the other Legionnaires were targeting them as they moved, and they showed up on the suit HUD as slow-moving red squares.

  Logan turned the gun toward the nearest square, and fired. The cannon jerked hard against the tripod as a burst of three hypervelocity armour-piercing explosive rounds belched from the barrel. The impact of the shells downrange threw dirt and rocks into the air, but, without the sights, he was firing too low to hit the suits.

  He raised the barrel a few degrees, and fired another burst. The exploding shells blew a mass of chunks from a rock, but had no impact on the insurgents other than to keep their heads down for a few seconds.

  Logan paused, waiting for one of them to move. The red squares were slowly coming closer, but they were staying in cover whenever they weren’t firing at the defenders or crawling up the hillside toward them.

  That hillside had once been thinly covered with trees, and Logan could see the shattered bases of the trunks protruding from the ground. But the trees themselves had either been pulled down by the Legion, or shot down at some point during the battle. Only a handful still stood on the hillside, and those had lost most of their upper branches.

  The fallen trunks were thick enough to provide some sporadic cover for the insurgents as they approached.

  A suit emerged from hiding behind the end of one trunk. Logan swung the cannon and fired as the suit raced toward a rock. Two rounds hit the dirt in front of the man and blew dirt and stones into the air. But the third hit home. The lower half of the suit’s left leg tumbled through the air as the suit slammed down onto the ground. Blood spurted across the dirt as the suit crawled to the rock, and slumped down behind it.