“How long might that be?” Sergeant Shotton asked.
“No telling,” said Alistair, speaking up for the first time. “The necessary parts were supposed to be in already, and I know the tech will get working on it right away. The rest of the base is probably geared up to rock and roll—but you know how supply schedules go.”
“Do I ever,” Wash said, a hint of a smile behind his lips.
“Whenever they arrive,” Subs said, “hopefully the mobile platforms will still be close enough that a targeted carpet bombing of the jungle can catch up to them and take the artillery out.”
Alistair looked doubtful. “I dunno if we want to pin our hopes on Hitchcock, Dark Ops. We traveled a pretty long way from the listening bugs to reach this place. If that’s the first place they show up, they won’t have much time to do a sweeping search before they have to refuel…”
His meaning was clear. There was no guarantee the SLICs would be coming to the rescue. Flares or no flares, Subs and the others were nowhere near where the SLICs would expect them to be.
Subs ground his teeth together. The kid was right. “Well, it’s a tight spot, make no mistake. We can wait it out and hope the doros take a wrong turn and the SLICs find us here… or we can try to force the issue by crossing that valley.”
Berlin, in a voice that caught Subs off guard due to its intensity and steadfastness, said, “Then we’ve got to move across the valley. I mean, even if we knew for sure the SLICs were coming, we still need to get ahold of the Republic as quickly as possible because those artillery platforms have to be destroyed. We’re thinking about our lives, but taking those things out will easily save lives a thousand times more than our own.”
What the point was saying was true. There was simply no argument against it, and Subs knew it. They would have to cross the valley. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Wash looked from Sergeant Shotton to Subs. “Do you think your bot can do anything for his knee? He can’t run, and we aren’t going to leave him here alone.”
Shotton rolled his eyes and clenched his teeth. “Oba. Just leave me here, dammit.”
Subs was about to explain that the bot could carry Shotton with ease, so long as no one else needed the stretcher, when a blaster bolt sizzled wide of the group, crashing into the rocks in a shower of sparks and stone.
“Doros!” shouted one of the marines above.
Everyone scattered for cover, hurling themselves behind rocks as the incoming fire intensified.
Subs swung around to see a horde of doros moving out from the tree line. They’d caught up.
It was too late.
24
The doros wasted no time pressing their assault on the ridge. The Republic soldiers were pinned behind rocks. The basic was practically curled up into a ball. Blaster fire zinked around them, impacting against the stone protection. Subs knew that if they didn’t act quickly, this fight would be over before it started.
“Everybody get your rifles up and return fire! Return fire right now!”
The reality was that there were far too many doros for him and the marines to keep at bay indefinitely. The best they could do was to make them suffer for crossing the distance between the jungle and the ridge. And they could only do that much if they got up from behind their cover and actually started dusting them. Because every second that went by where they didn’t contest the doros’ advance shaved away minutes of continued survival.
“I said get those rifles up! Fire your weapons!”
To their credit, the two appointed legionnaires listened to Subs without hesitation. No sooner had he shouted the command than they both popped up, hugging the stones to keep as small a profile as possible, and sent effective blaster fire toward the advancing enemy.
The unarmored one, Wash, was much more accurate with his shooting, taking careful aim and generally scoring hits at center mass. The other was less disciplined, but he made up for that by carrying a high-cycle rifle that required him to do little more than squeeze the trigger and let the weapon put in the hard work. Subs had used one of those when he was in the regular Legion; it wasn’t as lethal as a standard rifle, or as accurate, but it had very little recoil. The major was using this to his advantage, adjusting in real time when he missed the mark and walking his fire back, sweeping the blaster back and forth on the advancing dog-men until the barrel overheated and it flushed out a mandatory cooldown as it recycled its charge pack.
The few marines that remained were more of a mixed bag. Some of them were up and firing at Subs’s command, but about half picked up the fight only when their crippled sergeant screamed for them to do so.
“Get your guns into this fight or else we’re as good as dead! And don’t let up! Don’t stop! Quittin’ is the same as dyin’!”
The sergeant’s injury had done nothing to keep him out of the fight. The old hullbuster was lying down, scratching and fighting like a cornered wobanki, peering between two large stones and sending well-aimed fire into the doros.
The firing continued. Beyond the initial first moments, Subs was too busy dropping doros and changing charge packs to get a sense of what was happening around him. There was so much noise, so much blaster fire in both directions, that for all he knew he might be the last man alive. And if that was the case… well, there wasn’t much else he could do beyond what he was already doing.
“Changing packs!” shouted someone—Wash, Subs thought. The point knew to do that much. He was actually helping out in this fight, something Subs hadn’t expected.
Wash then sprinted over to Subs as blaster bolts zoomed nearby. The point crashed hard against the rock Subs used for cover. The kid wasn’t wearing any armor, and throwing his body into something so unforgiving surely didn’t feel nice.
“Is there a problem, legionnaire?” Subs asked, not taking his eyes off the doros.
“Yeah, I count about a hundred of them,” shot back the point.
Subs smiled at the comment. “Pretty sure there’s still more comin’. They know that we know about the guns, and they’re gonna do everything they can to dust us.”
“I know,” said Wash. “That’s why we gotta switch things up.”
“You got a SLIC on a string that can make a gun run that I don’t know about?”
“No, but if we can get across the valley we can still do an all-hail on the comm and try to get help to our location.”
Subs didn’t see much of an alternative. He’d been trying to find someone—anyone—over L-comm, but he’d gotten absolutely nothing. No more legionnaires from Victory Company who just happened to be close enough for him to find while groping through the dark.
Three doros sprinted on all fours to the head of the charging force. Subs tracked each one and dropped them with a single blaster bolt each. He then seamlessly changed his charge pack and slammed home a new one using only one hand. “Okay. Who’s the runner?”
“I think it needs to be me,” Wash said. “I’m conditioned as good as any legionnaire, and I know how to use the L-comm.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have a bucket,” Subs said, taking down two more doros.
“Major Berlin does, and I can take his.”
Subs thought this over. He trusted himself to get to the peak of Poro-Poro more than he did anyone else. But taking his gun out of this fight could have serious consequences for the marines. “Okay. That sounds good. I’ll keep in contact over L-comm. And if you don’t make it, I’ll be next up.”
“Wish me luck.” Wash gave a fractional nod and left Subs to continue holding off the doros.
“KTF!” Subs called after him.
He looked down at Alistair. The kid was still cowering behind the rock. Subs didn’t blame him. But the game now was to stay alive long enough for help to arrive. And that really did mean having every rifle in the fight.
“Alistair, buddy, listen to me. I know you’re scared right now.” Subs shot out a doro throat. “But you need to use your weapon. They might kill you if you come out,
but they’ll for damn sure kill you if they take this rock. And trust me when I say that the way they’ll do it will hurt a lot more.”
This seemed to get through to the kid. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and sprang up firing his weapon.
“All right!” crowed Subs. “You’re halfway to Dark Ops now, buddy!”
***
Wash moved from rock to rock, never slowing, but trying to make things as difficult as possible for the doros taking shots at him. At the same time, he had to be careful. A sprained ankle or wrenched knee would kill his plan before it had a chance to even get off the ground.
Kill his plan, and kill these marines. He had to get across that valley if they were going to survive.
He crashed behind the boulder from which Berlin was spraying blaster bolts.
“Where’d you go?” Berlin asked.
“To see the Dark Ops leej. We can’t stay here, Berlin.”
“Changing packs!” Berlin dropped down, removed his charge pack, and replaced it with a fresh one from his chest rig. He’d picked up the habit of calling out ammunition changes during the fight at the temple. It was something he should have learned in the Academy, but it was good to see he’d learned it now. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t see anywhere else we can go except up, and they’ll pick us off for sure if we start climbing.”
“We need to get across that valley and up on the other side. We gotta call in the Republic for help.”
Berlin looked at his friend, his face unreadable behind his bucket. “Well, if we’re gonna do it with all these doros coming, we better do it now. If they get any closer, they’ll for sure shoot anyone who tries to cross that valley.”
He popped up above the rocks and began firing again.
Wash almost wondered what he was doing for the fight, seeing how dedicated his friend was. He felt like a spectator in comparison. “I’m going right now, Berlin. And I need your bucket. The L-comm has a much better chance of reaching the Repub than anything else we’ve got.”
“Why can’t Dark Ops go?” Berlin asked, looking back at Wash for a split second as he continued to fire into the doros.
“You haven’t seen how much damage he’s doing. Every single shot kills at least one doro. We need him defending the ridge… not everyone can make this trip.”
Berlin dropped back down. “Okay. Then we both go.”
Wash shook his head. “Berlin, this isn’t gonna be easy. I gotta get down, run across, climb back up, and then scale Poro-Poro just to have a shot at making the call.”
“I didn’t ask if it was easy, and I’m not gonna let you go it alone. I got us all into this, so I’m taking the trip. Besides, if anything happens to you, it’ll be better for you to have someone else there.”
“You think you can carry me if I get hit?”
“Not carry you, Wash. I mean keep going. If one of us gets hit, the other has to take the L-comm and keep going.”
Wash considered whether to argue the point further. He could see that Berlin had that same stubbornly determined quality in his voice that he’d known since forever. And there wasn’t time for this. While the doros weren’t right on top of them yet, they were advancing, splitting up into smaller packs supported by heavy fire from the jungle tree line. How much longer would the joint Republic force on this ridge be able to hold them back?
“Okay. Dark Ops knows I’m going, so you better tell him over L-comm that you’re coming along.”
“He already knows. He’s been listening in. He says it’s a better idea if we go together.” Berlin gave Wash his politician’s smile.
Wash shook his head. The man was incorrigible. “On three, and then we run for the edge over there and start the climb down.”
Berlin nodded.
Wash counted down to their departure. “One… two… three!”
He leapt from the rock and began running for the drop-off into the canyon. Berlin’s footsteps crunched behind him.
The doros caught sight of them and sent blaster fire their way. Several bolts sizzled just a few feet in front of Wash, the dog-man shooters leading the target too much. But they soon adjusted, and the bolts were closer to his feet, kicking up rocks and dirt, causing him to squint, his eyes watering from the dust clouds.
When Wash reached the edge, he was greeted with a momentary bout of vertigo. The valley seemed to spin down below. But the climb would be short. After a sheer, vertical descent, the canyon wall let out to a still-steep, but manageable grade. This first part would be a stand-up climb, but after that they could descend using a crab-walk. They’d tumble head over heels if they tried running down.
“You with me?” Wash shouted.
The major practically ran right off the edge, using his momentum to take his legs over the side as he turned and fell onto his stomach. He scrambled for a panicked handhold, and finding one at the last second, began to climb down as if descending a ladder, picking out the ample toe and handholds studded in the canyon wall. “To the end, Wash!”
25
The two men moved from rocky handholds to sturdy hanging vines and rock-cliff trees growing from cracks in the canyon’s façade.
Wash looked up into his left and saw a dog-man close to the jungle tree line pointing them out. Another was communicating with an old handheld comm device, while two more aimed blaster rifles in their direction.
All Wash could do was hope that they were lousy shots.
The doros opened up, and blaster bolts sizzled around them, some zipping past and striking the valley below, others crashing into the cliffside as they climbed down.
Wash and Berlin picked up their pace. Hopefully the increase in speed wouldn’t lead to one of them missing a handhold and tumbling into the valley.
“I asked Dark Ops,” Berlin grunted, “to shoot those guys!”
“Good!” shouted back Wash as a bolt struck the rock just meters from him.
They climbed another few feet down, and Berlin gave an update. “Never mind. He says he can’t see them from the ridge.”
“Not good!”
More blaster fire chewed up the sheer cliffside around the two legionnaires. But they were closer to the change in gradient now. It was perhaps another five meters of sheer climbing and then they could begin moving more quickly down the slope.
The blaster fire intensified. Shards of rock and dirt fell down on them like a hailstorm. Wash felt fragments of stone dust his neck and slide down his shirt. He chanced a quick glance up, only to see that more doro shooters had gathered, crowding around each other to take aim at him and Berlin. If they had the leisure to do that… there must be quite a press against the marines.
Wash was about to ask Berlin to check on Subs when he felt something sharp nick the top of his ear. A trickle of warmth began to roll down his face.
“You’re bleeding, buddy,” Berlin said. He was protected from such injuries by his helmet and armor.
Wash had figured as much, but it didn’t much matter. He couldn’t exactly stop and dress the wound at this precarious moment.
A blaster bolt struck one of the trees jutting from a crevasse in the wall, sending a shower of needle-like splinters at them. Again, Berlin’s armor shrugged it off, but Wash felt the tiny pricks all over his head.
Berlin shouted at the doros, “Can’t you just stop shooting for one second?”
Wash almost smiled. Shouting at the dog-men was about all they could do right now.
But the blaster fire picked up even more. These doros were intent on taking them down.
In a dusty part of Wash’s consciousness, he wondered why they were so set and determined to kill him and Berlin, just two soldiers out of the many still defending the ridge. A dark part of his mind told him it was because they’d already killed everyone up top. But a more rational part of his mind reminded him it was because they knew what Wash and Berlin might be able to do if they reached the other side of the valley.
It hadn’t been an overstatement
when Berlin said the war would be over with the destruction of those artillery. And the doros knew it.
The blaster fire only grew hotter. Wash didn’t take the time to look, but he had no doubt more dog-men had added their guns to the fight. He felt there was no choice left but to drop the remaining three meters or so and hope that he didn’t break a leg. “Gotta get down the fast way!”
Berlin said nothing in return. He simply swung himself around so as to face away from the wall… and jumped. His arms flailed as he dropped, like a bird without feathers trying to slow his fall.
Wash followed him in almost exactly the same manner.
He saw Berlin hit the ground ahead of him and bounce forward into a somersault, then Wash hit the ground himself. Hard.
All the air seemed to leave his body, and then he was rolling and bouncing down the loose shale grade. The jarring tumble barely allowed him to take a breath. Everything was happening faster than he could process. He couldn’t breathe, he could barely string a thought together, and the only one that came to mind was a favorite Legion curse. His ears were filled with the punishing crash of the rock coming up to meet his body again and again, and his own grunts and groans in response. The horizon spun at a dizzying, terrifying speed. He finally had to squeeze his eyes shut.
The path he was slide-tumbling down was not without stray trees, logs, and spires. His eyes still closed, Wash hoped that none of them got in the way of his roll. If he found the sharp end of a broken branch, that would be the end of him. Even Berlin in his armor was at risk of not making it to the bottom alive.
It seemed to Wash that he bounced and fell for an eternity. His mind escaped the broken loop of repeated swears to wonder if the doros were still shooting at them. He vaguely thought they might be, and knew that when he finally stopped—if he ever stopped—he would need to scramble to his feet and start running immediately so as not to be an easy, stationary target.
Order of the Centurion Page 19