The rain kept them from hearing the rocket. It screamed into the middle of the platoon, right where the sergeant and the general were. They dove out of the way milliseconds before it exploded.
***
“Pedal to the metal!” the tank commander yelled. The tank sped up, quickly outpacing the APCs.
“I’m losing the others,” the third member of the crew shouted.
“Slow down?” the driver yelled toward the turret.
The tank commander nursed his wounded arm. Banging around the cupola had broken the wound open and blood was running down his arm.
“Slow down,” he said.
The third man relayed the order. The tank immediately lurched in response. They assumed a slow roll forward until the APCs appeared through the rain. The tank commander popped the hatch and stuck his head into the rain. He draped his shirt over the opening to keep the rain from pouring into the tank.
The tank picked up speed incrementally until it hit the sweet spot where the carriers could keep up. They rumbled ahead until the tank crashed into debris. The tank commander ducked as shredded metal flew past.
“What the hell was that?” he yelled at the driver.
“I’m driving faster than what I can see!” the driver shouted over his shoulder. His eyes were glued to the driver’s periscope.
The commander got on the radio. “Slow down and stay behind us,” he ordered the APCs. They were only too ready to comply. In the heart of the valley of death, first to fight was probably the first to die. A dark cloud hung overhead and continued to deliver a torrential downpour.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Thad hit the ground running. He’d been watching the update on his pad and knew exactly where he was, but he didn’t need any of that. Maximus turned once out of the shuttle and as it lifted away, he ran underneath it, making a beeline into the rain.
“Follow him!” Thaddeus screamed into the deluge. His boots splashed through new puddles as he struggled to keep Maximus in sight. He heard the platoon of warriors falling in behind him. Although not tactically sound, moving quickly was better than being tactical and too slow.
Maximus swerved one way. After a short distance, he swerved back.
“Watch out for that!” Thad yelled over his shoulder, pointing to his side. He had no idea what Maximus had run around, but figured he did it for a reason.
Suddenly, the building loomed in front of them. Maximus was at a closed door. Troops manned an upper deck and started firing into the soldiers. They snap-fired back and took cover. Thad continued to the building, spun, and put his back against the wall beside the door. He tried the handle. Locked.
“Looks like we have to do it the hard way,” he told the pig-dog. He pointed to a spot further down the wall. “Grenade.”
Maximus ran for it. Thaddeus pulled the pin and waited until the pig-dog was behind cover. The colonel let the spoon spin away as he dropped the grenade at the base of the door and also ran for it. He threw himself around a small balustrade just before the explosion. He didn’t have time to take a breath as he turned and sprinted for the opening. He threw another grenade inside, spinning it so it bounced off the floor and walls to keep anyone from grabbing it and chucking it back outside.
It blew, sending smoke and debris out the door. Thad took a deep breath and ran in one step behind Maximus, who sped toward the only vertical shape. He leapt and took the stunned soldier down. The colonel looked for a way upstairs. He headed into a corridor and shot two enemy soldiers who were running to see what the explosion was about.
He saw a door labeled ‘stairs’ and raced through. He vaulted up the stairs. Maximus caught up to him and almost passed him before they reached the second floor. Thad didn’t hesitate. He ran into the hallway and bounced off a flood of soldiers working their way onto the balcony. Thad kicked Maximus back into the stairwell. He launched a grenade each way out the door and slammed it shut, ducking away as he held it closed. The explosions shook the walls, but the door held.
He opened it and the two ran through. He tossed his last grenade onto the overhang. After the grenade went off, he leaned out the doorway and started firing his pistol. There was nowhere for the soldiers to hide. Maximus took care of two men who sought to sneak in behind Thad.
The colonel keyed his mic. “The coast is clear. Get in here!” he ordered the platoon. He checked a few of the less-mangled bodies. No grenades. No body armor. They carried one weapon and limited ammunition.
TerroCom had achieved the element of surprise. And they’d breached the building. All they had to do was find the head shed, that was, the military leadership.
Thad drained his canteen and wiped his brow. He made sure his blaster was charged and slapped the butt on his sniper rifle. He patted his vest where the empty grenade pockets were. “I need some more grenades,” he told Maximus. Gunfire from below told him that reinforcements had arrived and his soldiers were engaging them.
A bullet pinged off the concrete near him. A soldier was shooting at him from the next building over, a building that hadn’t been there a few minutes earlier.
The rain was slowing down. Thad ducked in the doorway, undid his rifle, and put it to his shoulder. He popped around the corner, aimed, and fired. The rifle bucked lightly before returning to his original aim point. He saw the man through the scope. His head rocked backward from the impact, before he fell behind a short wall.
Thad scanned the area, saw two more soldiers, shot both, and re-slung his rifle.
The firing beneath him had stopped. That could have meant one of two things.
“Let’s see if our people need any help, Mister Ambassador.” Thad laughed as he picked his way through the bodies and to the stairwell. Maximus grunted, snorted, and farted. “Your aroma does me great honor.”
Why am I joking around? Thad thought. Because you’re home. You’re comfortable here.
“What am I, Max?” Thad’s expression turned grim as he headed down the stairs. Every sound was crystal clear and told him something. Soldiers to the right of the stairwell, his soldiers, based on the sounds of body armor impeding movement. Someone injured and moaning. Someone else checking a door.
“Colonel Fry, coming out!” he yelled.
“Clear for Colonel Fry!” came the reply.
***
Captain Craken and Sergeant Ranier ran with the stretcher to deposit the last of the non-ambulatory wounded in the back of the carrier.
“Inbound, three o’clock,” a soldier called from the top of a burned-out hulk. Craken turned left and then right. He had no idea which direction had been designated as three o’clock. He found the soldier and held his hands up. The man pointed to the sky.
“Take cover!” Craken yelled. A quick check showed him that only he and Ranier were in the open. They stepped into the shadows.
The airplane screamed over the battleground. Once past, it rose high into the sky, turned over, and headed back.
“What do you think?” the sergeant asked.
“I think we’re going to be found out.” Craken peeked from under an armored overhang. The plane flew by with its wheels and flaps down. “It looks like it’s going to stall.”
“It looks like it’s going to land.” The sergeant leaned around the side and watched it descend on the far side of the small valley. “What should we do?”
“It looked like a one-seater, so we capture the pilot if we can. He doesn’t appear to know that we’re here.”
They couldn’t see the plane from where they were. Craken decided to move to a better position. He took one step and the plane’s machine guns opened up. The bullets ripped into the hulks and carriers.
Craken grabbed Ranier and drove her to the ground. The plane strafed the wreckage from where it had landed. It cycled back and forth, mercilessly shredding the destruction. The plane’s engine shut down. Craken was furious. He jumped up, pulled his pistol, and ran for the next vehicle. He wanted to be in position.
When the pilot came close, Cra
ken would make him pay.
***
The general raised his head. It felt as if it were covered with lead weights. He rolled over and pushed himself up, kneeling, but his head spun and nausea threatened to overwhelm him. He stayed still until his head cleared enough for him to see. The sergeant was dead. Everyone else was gone. The rain had stopped and the buildings were clear. The sounds of battle from within warmed his heart.
“We’re inside.” The general gritted his teeth as he worked his way to his feet. The world spun beneath him and he staggered, barely able to remain upright. One foot in front of another, he worked his way toward the building on the far right. The one on the left was biggest and there was a smaller one in the middle. He stumbled and fell. He thought his head exploded when he hit the ground.
Fireworks burst before his eyes. His stomach churned until he puked. His brain continued to shower his being with pain. He sat where he was, pulled his canteen, and tried to take a drink, but it had a hole in it and was empty.
A puddle was nearby. The water looked clear. He rolled to his side and crawled. The general thrust his face into the cool water. He sucked in a mouthful, swallowed, and then drank some more. He sat up once again. The throbbing was less. He splashed more water on his face and then over his head. His helmet was gone.
The general looked for it, but he’d come too far, he reasoned. Every step was a new adventure in pain. The battle was being fought, and he was sitting outside. He needed to get into the building.
He stood and inhaled deeply through his nose, blowing out slowly through his mouth. After the first step, he built momentum, and his body took over. More gunfire. Rounds impacted nearby. He ignored them because there was nothing else he could do.
It took all his focus and energy to achieve the singular goal of reaching the door that had been blown in.
By his soldiers, undoubtedly.
The valley of death. And TerroCom was engaged with the enemy. The general had to get inside.
Glory waited for no man. It had to be seized by the bold.
The general had to get inside.
***
Thad sent two soldiers ahead to clear a room before the others would advance. The enemy soldiers had fled before TerroCom and were trying to set up blockades. What they didn’t know was that soldiers had gone upward as well. They were clearing each level of the building, simultaneously.
Pockets of resistance were quickly defeated.
“Second floor is clear,” someone reported.
“Come down the far stairwell and introduce the group forming there to Mister Grenade,” Thad replied.
A few moments later, the small window in the door broke and a grenade bounced off the far wall.
“Fire in the hole!” the colonel yelled and wrapped himself over Maximus. The grenade exploded and a group of soldiers fired as they ran into the dust cloud.
“First floor is clear,” Thad said into his mic.
“Fourth floor is clear.”
“Resistance on third floor.”
Thad signaled for a group to head upstairs. He waved at five of the soldiers. “I need a couple grenades,” he told them. Two instantly appeared and he thanked the men who offered them. “We need to cut off anyone trying to retreat into the caves, if I remember my geography correctly.”
“We’ve been from one end of this floor to the other. There is no basement and there’s no back door,” one of the soldiers replied.
“Didn’t they have a massive warehouse down there?”
“That’s what I heard,” Thad answered. “That means there needs to be vehicular access. Good thinking. We have a tank coming to solve that problem. What do you say we find their leadership team and end this?”
“Finish this and go home.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Thad grinned at the men. Maximus growled.
***
Craken waited, force to listen to the moaning of those of his people who had survived the attack. The injured and now more dead.
The captain’s blood boiled. He brought his pistol up and aimed it at the open area where he expected the enemy pilot to appear. He thumbed off the safety and prepared to fire.
He blinked to clear his eyes, thinking he was missing the man. He leaned out from behind his cover, looking left and right, but nothing. Craken moved into the open and walked slowly, keeping his balance throughout so he could fire the instant the pilot appeared. He kept going until he was even with the last row of hulks.
The pilot climbed back into his plane and started the engine. Craken fired as he ran towards it. The first round cracked the cockpit screen. The second one missed. The captain stopped, steadied his pistol, and fired.
The pilot swung the plane around to bring the heavy machine guns to bear on the soldier. Craken fired until his pistol was empty. The barrels faced him. He closed his eyes, but death didn’t come.
He peeked through one eye. The plane was spinning out of control. The dead pilot was wedged against the controls. Craken did the manliest of things and ran for his life. At least he didn’t scream as a wing-tip ripped through his backpack.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Thad ran up the stairs on his way to the top floor. His people controlled both stairwells all the way to the top, but they hadn’t entered the eighth floor. They were clustered around the door on the top landing when Thad arrived.
“Sitrep,” he asked. Situation Report.
“They have overturned furniture in the hallway and automatic weapons.”
Thad noticed a body shoved to the side. They’d learned the information the hard way.
“Did anyone try to talk with them?”
The man shook his head. Thad crawled up to the door, made sure Maximus was behind him, and opened it a crack. “Hey, fellas. This battle’s over. No need for anyone else to die.”
“Only you. We might let you live if you withdraw now,” a voice from the other side called out.
“You see, we have enough demolitions to bring this building down. We can weld this door shut and the one at the other end of the hallway, and then we can blow the building up. It’s low risk for us, but the big man might take the demo out of my pay, so I prefer not to do it that way. We’re just soldiers, you and I, working for someone else. What do you say, put your weapons down and let’s call it a day, a day that we can both walk away from.”
There was a long delay during which rough whispers came from beyond the hasty barricade. Maximus snorted. The soldier right behind him hurried back before the pig-dog could do something else. His foot caught and he fell down the steps, clattering as he went.
“What are you doing out there?” the voice shouted.
“My dog farts, and it’s hideous. One of our soldiers was in the blast radius and went over backwards. We’d love to come in and visit you. Do you have windows that you might consider opening? We could use a draft in here.” Thad looked at the soldier next to him and shrugged.
“Are you messing with us?”
“No. I’d let you see him, but if you shoot my dog, I’ll kill every single one of you with my bare hands. I don’t want to have to do that.” The look in Thad’s eye told the soldiers around him that he was no longer joking. “Put your weapons down and I’ll introduce you. He’s not a dog, really. He’s an alien from Glakridoz who looks like a cross between a pig and a dog. But he’s with me. You got any family?”
The voice beyond didn’t answer. They heard the clatter of a weapon hitting tile. A soft knock on the door told them someone was on the other side.
“When I crack the door, you jam ten fingers through the crack,” Thad instructed. His soldiers readied their weapons. Thad cracked the door open and fingers appeared. Maximus snorted and nodded.
The colonel pulled the door open and spun the man around to use him as a shield. Thaddeus looked past the man’s head to see the officers of the enemy army standing with their hands up. “Join your people,” Thad commanded. The man walked back to the barricade.
Thad sign
aled to the soldiers to clear the area. They moved tactically, covering each other as they operated in pairs. A well-trained unit. Thad was proud to be with them, on top of the objective with the enemy leadership bowing before him.
A tear came to his eye and crawled down his face. This was it. A warrior’s home. He was comfortable and happy. He was covered in blood and sweat. He smelled of burnt propellant and explosives. And his chest swelled with each breath.
“Gentlemen. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Thaddeus Fry and you are my prisoners. While in my charge, you will not be harmed. Should you try to escape, you will be killed. Now order your men to stand down. Tell them that they are to surrender their weapons to the nearest TerroCom soldier by laying it at their feet and lying on their faces with their hands over their heads.”
“Snort, snort,” Maximus said as he checked out the prisoners. He walked from one to the next, sniffing. When he reached the end, he farted. Thad shook his head.
“Oh my god,” one of the prisoners whined and started to gag.
“You’ll get used to it. One of you better get on the horn and give that order. For every Terrocom soldier killed from this point forward, one of you will die.”
The man who led the surrender shook his head. “No can do. Radio is shot.” He pointed at the wall where a bullet-riddled radio hung in shambles.
“Good news!” Thaddeus said with a smile. “Mine still works.”
Thad keyed the mic. “All hands, set your radios to broadcast speaker. The enemy leader has something to say.”
He held the mic to the man’s mouth. He looked defeated. Thad couldn’t tell what rank he was because he’d never seen the like before. More importantly, he didn’t care.
“General Pleiades here. Put your weapons down. We have surrendered. Our position is no longer tenable. You will surrender. That is an order. It is given to save your lives.”
Maximus growled.
“What is it, boy?” Thad started to walk away. “Watch them,” he told a soldier.
A Warrior's Home: Assignment Darklanding Book 09 Page 7