“What do you miss about him, Mast?”
Mast’s face assumed the happy glow of an initial drunk. “That he has a purpose for everything he does. Very muchly so, even if he does not tell his deputy, he still has a purpose. He throws a tire around for six months, very bizarrely, to be ready to fight a man like Dregg.”
Shaunte pursed her lips and watched the Unglok savor the last taste of the tigi .
“Thank you, Mast, for holding down the fort while we wait for our sheriff to come home.”
“What do you miss about him?” Mast asked, opening his eyes to watch her.
The thought instantly appeared in her mind’s eye. “He rubbed my feet,” she said, smiling at the memory.
“Mast Jotham does not understand human mating customs,” the Unglok replied before standing, bowing, and quickly leaving.
Shaunte’s mouth hung slack as she tried to deliver a witty reply, but nothing came to her. She looked at the empty chair and then to the corner of her desk where he often sat, not to loom over her, only to be close.
***
A line of ten soldiers stood with their hands quick-tied behind their backs. The enemy that didn’t look any different from TerroCom.
“Look at your pads,” the general said. “Those are the questions we need answered. Everyone take one of these individuals and see what they have to say.”
One of the enemy spit at the general. “We ain’t telling you nothing, Melbie pig!”
“Who’s the pig? Only one of us is trying to spit on people. I’m sorry if you think of that as defiance. It is not very good and hasn’t served to motivate your fellows.” The general signaled for the prisoners to be taken away and interrogated separately.
“Leave that one to us,” Thad said, pointing at the upstart soldier. “Here I was thinking you Primers had no balls, and then we meet the likes of you. Congratulations. You put your fellow soldiers to shame.”
The man looked confused.
“What do we call you and your army?” the general asked conversationally.
“You won’t get me to say nothing!”
“Probably not. For your dignity and ours, we’re not even going to try. We don’t torture people because we’re not angry. Our governments disagree and they send us. We’re grunts, just like you. Tell us where the main body of your force is located. Your headquarters? Anything?”
“No,” the man replied calmly.
“Fine. We’ve satisfied our end of it. We can honestly tell our superiors that you wouldn’t talk. Thirsty?”
The soldier nodded. Thad cut the man’s ties and walked a few steps away. He pulled a protein bar from his pack and offered his canteen. The prisoner rubbed his wrists, but took the canteen and drank deeply. Thad moved to the side where the sun was in the man’s eyes. Maximus stayed behind and watched with narrowed eyes, his muscles tensed. Thad winked at the pig-dog.
“Do you guys mess around with each other in between the fighting?” Thad asked. The blood on his uniform was turning dark and getting tacky. “On the ship here, those guys started a firefighting foam battle. We were all drenched. They even doused the general. No respect, man, I’m telling you.”
Thad laughed loudly as the man munched his protein bar.
“You haven’t been a prisoner of Melbie pigs before, have you?”
The man shook his head.
“This is all we do,” Thad told him. “Your government gets you all spun up. Ours does the same thing. Those idiots need to be out here, not us.”
The man chuckled as he nodded. Thad draped an arm over the enemy soldier’s shoulder and walked him back into the shade of the tank where they sat down and relaxed. The other prisoners had seen what Thad wanted them to see.
The man sneered when Maximus approached to give him a good sniff. The pig-dog’s head was covered in blood and his fangs were exposed. The man leaned away when Maximus shoved his snout against the prisoner’s chest.
***
“One tank and three personnel carriers,” Craken reported.
“We can move about thirty people on the ground and with one hundred in the shuttles, that leaves us thirty short. And we’re almost out of anti-tank weapons,” Thad said as he ran through their logistics footprint. He blew out a breath. “Leave the wounded to guard this bunch, and then we have sufficient lift assets to move the combat effective soldiers for our next strike. If we’re successful, then we’ll be able to recall the Big Nuts.” Thad scribbled on his pad, doing the math. He referenced the map, pinpointed the details, and drew a couple lines.
“Do you believe what they told us?” the general asked.
“When they thought the first guy had rolled, the rest didn’t have the backbone to resist. The different statements seem to corroborate each other, so yes, I do believe we have actionable intelligence.”
“The valley of death,” the general intoned. Thad tightened, and Maximus growled. “We left nothing there, at least nothing standing.”
“Maybe that’s their Gettysburg, the turning point in the war, where they stood tall and died in a latch-ditch defense,” Thad suggested.
“Our people died, too.”
“Too many. But it helped to form TerroCom, because standing toe to toe and slugging it out isn’t the best way to fight.” Thad thought about what he had said while looking at the battlefield where he’d lost thirty-two of his soldiers because of slugging it out. “At least we’re trying to find a different way.”
“Vertical envelopment. We get inside the wire, five different avenues of approach, six if you count the ground element.”
“I do,” Thad said as he scanned the sky and shifted nervously. “We’ve been here too long. We need to move.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” The general smiled as five shuttles approached from the west, low in the sky, and settled into the small area still shrouded in haze from the battle.
Thad pointed to Craken. “Leave him in charge?”
The general hesitated before answering. “Yes, not because it’s out of the way, but because this is going to be a hot zone soon enough. They’ll send somebody out to check on this mess. This group will probably have to fight.”
Craken’s expression changed from one of disappointment to one of concern.
“It’s all you, Captain,” Thad said, offering his hand. The two soldiers shook. “Make every shot count.”
“Thank you, sir,” Craken replied woodenly.
Thad started pointing at the troops and giving directions. The group the general arrived with loaded back into the shuttles. Thad’s unit had been ravaged. The healthy reorganized into three ten-person squads that loaded into the carriers. Lightly injured soldiers crewed the tank. Two of them had experience. The third had a strong back, even with his injuries.
“Pick up the pace! You’ll be briefed en route,” Thad yelled, vigorously twirling his finger in the air.
The ground unit fired up their engines and spun through the dust on their way across the open plain to create a diversion as the shuttles approached the valley of death from the opposite direction.
Thad, Maximus, and the general were the last ones to board. They both gave the thumbs up to button up the ships and take off. The transport shuttles lifted off and stayed low as they traveled an indirect course to improve their chances of surprising the enemy. The colonel didn’t count on it, but he could always hope for the best, even as he planned for the worst.
CHAPTER TEN
Captain Craken looked at his unit. Half of them were on their backs, breathing the extent of their ability. That left him with a small force to guard the prisoners and defend the position. He decided that he couldn’t do both.
“Listen up,” he told the prisoners. “I’ll let you decide what you want to do. You can take your chances in the desert beyond us, or we lock you inside one of the dead APCs.”
None of the prisoners spoke. “If we send you into the desert, we’ll remove the cuffs.”
“Do we get water?” one of the prisone
rs asked. Craken wanted to say no, but the pile of gear from the dead had more than ten full canteens. The captain motioned to one of his people to gather the canteens. “If you try to come back, we’ll shoot you. If you try anything when we release you, we’ll shoot you. You do something we don’t like? You get the picture.”
They separated the prisoners, four soldiers uncuffing them one at a time, while ten others kept their rifles trained. They were issued a canteen and sent running over the small hill. One by one, the soldiers ran away. Craken put two of the immobile wounded on the hillside to watch the prisoners, make sure they kept going.
“What if they come back at night?” the female sergeant asked.
“We better not be here. If we are, that’ll mean the general’s attack failed, and we’ll be alone on Centauri Prime, counting on them to be merciful.”
“I’m not sure I like that.”
“I’m sure that I don’t. Now let’s see what kind of ambush we can set up from within these hulks.”
***
The tank roared ahead, staying in front of the three armored personnel carriers. Those inside held on as the armored ground vehicle bounced and shook. “Why don’t they have hover technology?” one of the soldiers asked.
“We didn’t give it to them!” another answered with a rough smile.
“What do you think of the new colonel?” the first soldier asked.
“Have you ever heard of a ground company wiping out a tank regiment?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’ve never heard of it. We lost a bunch of people, but did you see him charge that tank? Who does that kind of stuff? I saw it because I lifted my head just enough so I could see what was going to kill me. Remember when he said fifty percent of us would freeze? He wasn’t wrong there either. We could have all died,” the soldier replied.
“Maybe he saved us, but if I get my hands on the intel weenies who fed us the wrong information, they are going to have a really bad day. We were set up. It’s a miracle that we survived.”
“Or maybe it’s because the colonel refused to let us die.”
“By force of will alone, I set my mind in motion...” the first man quoted.
“Indomitable will. If you want to worry about something, worry about where we’re going next. They call it Ground Forces Graveyard because of how many of our people are buried there.”
The four vehicles forged ahead, treads tearing an unerring path across the light grasses and hard-packed dirt on their way to the valley of death.
***
“Here’s the plan, people,” Thad said into the wired microphone. He could hear his own voice over the loudspeakers in his shuttle. It was the same in the other shuttles, too. “We land in five separate locations on the east side of the valley. We scream in, do a combat dive out the back, and the shuttles fly away. We hit the ground running and spread out. There is a facility at the end of the valley that we built as a monument to that battle. We expect the enemy has hardened the buildings, but we don’t know in what way. We’ll figure it out.
“Our job isn’t to kill the soldiers, it’s to kill whoever is calling the shots and destroy the will of the men to fight. We can’t kill the body, but we can lobotomize the brain. This is your mission objective. No matter what you see happen around you, focus on the mission objective and we will finish this. Terrocom was created for this purpose. Not fighting tanks, but crushing the will of the enemy to keep fighting. Get in there and do your jobs. Listen for the rally call.” Thad looked at the mic before putting it into its cradle. He’d said what he needed to say. The general would join the platoon in his shuttle for the attack, and Thad would stay with the platoon on his.
Maximus snuffled, grunted, and groaned at Thad’s feet. The sheriff kept a hand on the pig-dog to help keep him calm. He’d flown with Thad over the entirety of Ungwilook. It wasn’t the flying that had him on edge.
Thad checked his watch. He looked at his map. They’d have to cool their heels while the tank and APCs worked their way to the mouth of the long valley, the place where Thad and his company had entered eons ago.
Back then, he had artillery in support. Air defenses on both sides kept anything from flying overhead. The valley had been a wasteland of dead vehicles, the only cover available.
The Forty-First Division was in front of his company. The son of the Mother Lode’s custodian, Nimian Todd, was in Two-dash-Four of the Forty-First. They had been wiped out to a man, because their leadership froze when they came under fire during the final push.
Someone poked the colonel in the shoulder. He came to as if from a sound sleep. “Sorry, sir. It’s like you were having a nightmare.”
Thaddeus nodded. “What do you know about where we’re going?”
The man shrugged. Nothing.
“I’ve been there. Sounds echo off the cliff face. It can get loud. Don’t get distracted. Focus on the objective. Keep going. We’ve harped on that since I joined TerroCom. Keep moving. That’s your best tactic to stay alive.”
“Roger,” the soldier replied. swallowing the dose of grim reality.
***
The general didn’t disagree with Thad’s briefing, but it wasn’t as upbeat as the general had wanted. Get in there and decapitate the hydra!
The colonel had detailed the general’s transport shuttle to a point closest to the enemy headquarters. It was high risk but high reward.
“What do you say, boys? Are we going to kick ass and take names?” The general unbuckled his belt and stood. “Now is when you find out what you’re made of. To arms! For king and country, we fight. We will drive the interlopers back into the sea.”
The solder closest to the general looked confused. “There isn’t a sea in this part of Centauri Prime.”
“Our history is written by the victors. They determined the future that is our past. Will we do the same for those who follow us?”
“Hell yeah!” a sergeant shouted. The others clenched their teeth, lips parted in near-feral grins.
“Holding at Point Alpha,” the pilot reported.
“Status of the ground unit?” the general asked.
“Fifteen minutes until they enter the valley. Another ten to get into position. Sorry, General, we’re in a holding pattern until then.”
***
The tank followed the cut between two small hills that marked the entrance to valley. A cliff rose at the end. The rocky peaks above it prevented an approach from that end. A river and hills marked one side, and the other was blocked by more hills and a shallow canyon. There was only one way in or out. A deep cave into the cliff led to an underground cavern warehouse. In the last war, Centauri Prime didn’t have the luxury of time. They needed to end the war and couldn’t wait for a long blockade.
They paid the price in lives. Here they were again, but this time, the conditions were different.
“Any emissions?” Thad asked the pilot. Air defense radars.
“Nothing on the scope,” the woman replied. “Holding at Point Echo.”
Thad looked down at the pig-dog. Maximus was sitting and watching him. “I wish I knew what you were thinking, buddy. You seem to know things.” Thad scratched his head and ears, smiling at the simplicity of the act. Not everything had to be profound to have meaning. Maximus was his only present link to Darklanding. “If they are in there, we’ll finish this and go home.”
Maximus snorted and farted.
Thad shook his head.
“We finish this and go home,” he repeated to the soldier sitting next to him.
“We finish this and go home,” someone down the line replied. The soldiers took up the chant.
The pilot said something, but Thad couldn’t hear. He waved the group to silence.
“The ground force has entered the valley. On a side note, it’s started to rain.”
“Rain?” Thad’s ears perked up. “How hard?”
“It’s a downpour.”
Thad grabbed at the radio and pun
ched a few buttons. A green light acknowledged that the mic was live. “All hands. We are going in using the rain as cover. Armor force, we will be in front of you and when the shooting starts, you may not be the target. Take care before returning fire. Pilots, drop us as close to the objective as you can. Go, go, go!”
The nose dipped and the shuttle jerked forward. It rose quickly over the hill in front, driving the passengers’ stomachs into their mouths. No one yacked. They were over and tightened against their restraints when the ship dove back toward the ground. It accelerated forward.
Thad tapped furiously at his data pad and sent new landing coordinates to each shuttle. His plan was to deliver the teams across an arc in front of the buildings. Entry points would be determined by the individual units with areas of responsibility designated to avoid intramural firefights, which never ended well.
He activated the comm system while Maximus howled at the violence of the ship’s zigzagging approach. “Stay in your lanes, own your targets, and accomplish the mission. Good hunting. See you at the party. Fry out.”
He fumbled trying to put the handset back in its cradle, but the shuttle flared and the hatches popped. He threw the handset at the comm, unbuckled, and ran out the hatch with the rest of the platoon.
***
The general yelled his war cry as the shuttle opened and the soldiers pounded into the rain. They formed a perimeter as they’d been taught, and the shuttle dusted off. It disappeared into the white-out of rain. The general was disoriented, as were the troops.
The platoon sergeant pointed one way, a second way, and then held his hands up as if to say, I don’t know.
General Quincy signaled for them to remain in place while he pulled a compass from his pocket. He had to assume that they were delivered on target, the new target that Colonel Fry had sent at the last second.
He got his bearings and hatcheted an arm in the direction they needed to go. The sergeant put his people into position and sent them ahead. He fell in beside the general, his weapon at the ready.
A Warrior's Home: Assignment Darklanding Book 09 Page 6