A lull fell on the battlefield as Kurgan and human soldiers stared at the smoldering hole, thankful to be still alive.
Sheridan decided to take advantage of the situation. He cupped a hand to his mouth and hollered in Kurgan, “Look out, there’s more of those beasts on the position!”
Like water surging from a burst dam, the Kurgans broke and fled for their lives. Sheridan knew these Kurgans weren’t the battle-hardened ones of the Imperial Guard he had fought in his timeline. They, like their human counterparts, were conscripts given only the most rudimentary training before being sent into the lines.
“Yeah!” called out a soldier. “That showed them.”
“I think the Kraken may have had something to do with it,” said Sheridan.
“Sir, what would you like us to do?” asked the MP corporal.
“Round up our survivors and head back to our position in reserve. I’m going to liaise with Colonel Denisov and will meet you back there.”
With his guts still feeling like jelly, Sheridan trailed his people out of the line and out into the open ground. Once again they had gotten lucky. Why none of this was in the official history of the battle troubled him. Then again, the books he would read in the future were less than truthful. He cleared his mind of such thoughts and began to jog. With time ticking down, if there was another assassin on the hunt, Sheridan had to find and neutralize it before it got to Denisov.
Chapter 37
“Tighter,” said Cole through gritted teeth to Suparat as she wound the sticky medical tape around his chest.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she replied, looking at the large purple bruises on his side.
“The damage has already been done. Just pull it good and tight, and that’ll help me move around without damaging myself any further than I already have.”
“My goodness, your body’s covered in scars,” said Simone, a slender woman with dark skin and genetically modified bright blue eyes. When Suparat had reached out to her, Simone never hesitated to help. Her tiny one-bedroom apartment was in a quieter section of the base.
“Yeah, a lifetime in the service will do that to you,” replied Cole. “Say, you wouldn’t have any painkillers in your medicine cabinet, would you?”
“Nothing that will take your pain away. I only have headache pills.”
“That’ll have to do. Bring me the entire bottle.”
“What are you going to do next?” asked Suparat.
“You and I are going to use your computer to find Cromwell, and then I’m going to stop him from doing whatever the bastard is up to.”
“Alan, I know you asked me not to pry, but I can’t help but think back to the woman your robotic insect killed back at the school. She wasn’t normal, was she?”
“No. I’m not even sure what she was myself,” he lied. “Look, my job is to keep you safe, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I don’t think too much about the details. If I did, I’m sure it would drive me around the bend.”
“Here’s your pills,” said Simone, handing Cole the bottle and a glass of water.
“You’re a dear, Simone. Now for my next outrageous demand, do you think you could find some different clothes for me to wear?”
“My brother crashes here sometimes. He’s a construction engineer. Some of his clothes might fit you. Give me a minute to go through his stuff.”
“Thanks.”
Suparat took a seat and opened her tablet. As before, she accessed the base’s security footage and started from the last place they saw Cromwell and expanded her search outward. It took nearly an hour for her to find him. He was sitting in a quad watching the security forces as they conducted their patrols of the base’s power station and the adjoining water treatment facility.
Cole had changed into a set of old blue coveralls and was eating some sandwiches when Suparat located Cromwell. “How old is that footage?” he asked.
“Less than an hour ago,” Suparat replied.
“He seems interested in something at the end of the industrial section’s corridor.”
Cole sat back and closed his eyes. He didn’t have an analytical mind like Sheridan or Wendy. Cole tried to recall the discussion in the shuttle about what Colonel Kadir was hoping to accomplish in the past. He could hear Sheridan saying that Kadir had hedged his bets on altering the timeline and was also prepared to change the future, whatever that meant. If Cromwell was playing dumb and using the Kurgan to get whatever he was after, what the hell could it be?
“Another glass of water, Alan?” asked Simone.
Cole sat straight up and opened his eyes. Simone’s words were the answer. “Jesus, the bastard’s going to tinker with the water.”
“What do you mean?” said Suparat. “Is he going to poison the water?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“I have to get over there right away.”
Suparat stood. “Alan, do you know your way around the plant as well as I do?”
“No, but I can’t afford for you to get hurt.”
She smiled at him. “And I won’t as long as you’re with me. You need me. I can get you anywhere in that facility, no questions asked. If he’s going to do something to the water, I’m positive I’ll be able to guide you right to him.”
Cole couldn’t fault her logic even if he didn’t want her tagging along. “Okay, but you have to keep behind me at all times, and if we run into trouble, you hightail it right back here.”
“It’s a deal,” she replied.
Cole picked up his pistol, jammed home a fresh magazine, and pulled back on the slide, loading a round in the chamber. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 38
“How’s your foot treating you?” Tarina asked Wendy.
“Okay, I guess,” she replied, looking down at the bandages wrapped around her foot. “The pills you gave me took the edge off the pain. But from here on out, let’s limit my intake of them; I need to keep my mind clear if I’m to confirm our jump calculations from here to the wormhole portal.”
Both women had discarded most of their dirty clothes for whatever they could find in the shuttle. None of their clothes fit, but at least they were clean and didn’t smell to like a septic tank.
“Do you think the portal will be open when we try to leave?” asked Tarina
“It’s not a case of it being open. I have to pinpoint its location and then entice it to open wide enough to let us pass through it like we did when we traveled back in time.”
“How will you do that?”
“The portal is the key. I checked with the computer, and there’s one on board our craft.”
“Really? I didn’t see anything.”
Wendy smiled. “And you won’t. It’s a near-invisible circular strand of tachyon mass. Once I find the wormhole, I’ll shoot the portal at it. As it speeds up to beyond light speed, it expands, and this affects the rotation of the wormhole, enabling it to become large enough for us to fly through.”
“Just a second; didn’t we need the gravity of a white dwarf to help open the portal to get here?”
“Yes. But don’t forget that portal is still there. All we need, theoretically, is one of the wormhole’s entrances to be accelerated to a high velocity to make two-way travel possible.”
“Theoretically.”
“Yeah, theoretically. Then again I could have the science all wrong, and we could end up in another part of the galaxy, in another dimension, or even better, somewhere else in the past.”
“You’ve never failed to get us home,” said Tarina. “Why don’t we start those calculations together? It’s well past midnight, and if I remember right, the Kurgan’s big push is only a couple hours away. Come the morning, we’re going to need to be able to retrieve Michael and Alan at a moment’s notice.”
Wendy tossed Tarina a pen. “Pass me some paper and let’s see who figures it out first.”
“Deal,” Tarina replied, knowing full well her friend would beat her to the solution. Still, Wend
y thrived on competition, so Tarina planned on giving her a run for her money.
Chapter 39
Thick, black smoke filled Denisov’s command post.
Sheridan brushed the smoke aside with his hand as he searched the bunker for any survivors. As the Kurgans were retiring from their position, a lucky shot from a drone had struck the post, blasting a hole in the side of it.
The first person he found was a female lieutenant. She was still sitting at her desk. Sheridan turned her head slightly and clenched his jaw. A piece of shrapnel had struck her on the temple and killed her. He laid her head down on the table and continued to look around.
“Colonel Denisov, are you here,” he called out.
“Is that you, Mister Hill?” said Adams as he staggered out of the smoke.
“It sure is. How are you doing?”
“Fine . . . I think. I was fixing a cable under a table when the missile hit.”
“Find yourself a working radio and head for the nearest trench. Reestablish comms with higher and stay there until I come get you.”
“Will do.” Adams gave a thumbs-up and staggered off in search of a radio.
A man moaned somewhere off to Sheridan’s right. He stepped over a dismembered body and pushed a shattered table to one side. “Damn,” said Sheridan when he saw Denisov lying there with dirt and blood streaked across his face.
“Sir, can you hear me? It’s me, Lieutenant Hill.”
Denisov partially opened his eyes. “Get me to my feet, Hill.”
Sheridan bent down and helped the old soldier to stand. “Sir, you need to see a medic.”
“There’s no time for that. Get me to the closest trench so we can prepare for the next assault.”
With his right arm around the Colonel’s waist, Sheridan helped him to the trench Adams was working in.
Denisov took a seat on the floor. “I take it I’m the only one to come out of there alive?”
“You and Adams, sir.”
“Hill, we will have to tighten up our perimeter. I want whoever is left of us to withdraw back into a horseshoe shape around this trench here. We’ll fight the Kurgs to the last from our new position.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hill, you have to see to this. If anyone argues tell them you’re doing it on my authority.”
“Colonel, I doubt there are many officers left to argue with.”
“No, I guess not. Hurry, my boy, and see to it.”
Sheridan looked over the ground and the possible enemy approaches and formed a plan in his mind. Before leaving, he tapped Adams on the shoulder. “Any luck reaching higher?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, now let them know what we’re about to do.”
“Sir, division headquarters reports that a fleet strike force from Romeo-Tango-7 is on their way to Terra Nova.”
Sheridan had no clue where that was but was buoyed by the fact that help could be coming. “Keep monitoring the radio and watch over the colonel. If he passes out, call for a medic.”
“Will do.”
Sheridan crawled out of the trench and sprinted over to the forward lines. He had to get his plan in place before the Kurgs came back. Time itself was an enemy. He ran from position to position, passing on his orders. No one challenged his authority. Most were too shell-shocked to care. The last people he moved were his own. He handed over command of what was left of the company to Verdorn and shook the sergeant’s hand for luck.
On the way back to his command trench, Sheridan spotted someone moving among the mounds of Kurgan dead. He flipped off the safety on his pistol and walked toward the individual. Sheridan called out, “Hey, you, stand still.”
The soldier saw him coming toward him and turned to run. Before he got two paces, another soldier appeared out of nowhere and tackled him. Sheridan ran over and saw it was one of the MPs pinning the man to the ground.
“Roll him over,” ordered Sheridan.
The MP flipped the man over and jammed his rifle into the stunned soldier’s face.
“What were you doing?” asked Sheridan.
The man tried to look away only to have his mask grabbed by the MP and held in place. “The officer asked you a question,” said the MP. “Answer it.”
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” protested the soldier.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” replied Sheridan. “Tell me what you were doing to the Kurgan dead.”
“Teeth, sir. Some of the Kurgs have gold teeth. Have you seen the size of their teeth? Hell, I figured they didn’t need them anymore so I’ve been helping myself to them.”
A shiver ran down Sheridan’s back. The man was a ghoul. “What’s your name?”
“Anderson, Convict Anderson.”
“Well, Convict Anderson, you are clearly in violation of multiple army regulations. You should have known that no one is allowed to perform an indignity to a corpse. That rule even applies to Kurgans, and by pulling their teeth, you most certainly violated their bodies.”
“That rule is pure horse crap. I ain’t never heard of no such rule.”
“Now you have, and it’s the law,” said the MP.
“Take him away and have him locked up until the battle is over,” said Sheridan to the MP.
“Locked up where, sir?”
“Good point. Bind him and stick him in a trench where he won’t get in the way.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the MP as he hauled the convict to his feet and dragged him away.
By the time Sheridan made it back to his trench, a medic was there treating the colonel.
“He passed out right after you left, sir,” explained Adams. “He’s really in a bad way but refuses to be removed from the battlefield.”
Sheridan looked at the medic. “How’s he doing?”
“He broke his other arm and several bones in his left foot when the bunker was hit,” said the medic. “I don’t think he has any internal injuries, but without a portable sensor unit, I’m only guessing. He’s a tough old bugger, so he should live until we can extract him to the rear.”
“Thanks,” said Sheridan. “Before you go, could you give me something to help block the pain coming from my broken elbow?”
The medic did a cursory glance of the wound and injected some painkillers into Sheridan’s arm. “That should hold you for another twelve hours.”
Sheridan nodded.
The medic departed to tour the line and see what he could do for the other injured soldiers.
“Looks like you’re now in command, sir,” said Adams.
“I know for a fact the history books didn’t mention this,” said Sheridan to himself.
“Pardon, sir?”
“Nothing. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. Any word on that strike force?”
Adams shook his head. “No, sir. The only thing that’s come over the radio was an intelligence report.”
“What did it say?”
“The Kurgans are massing their forces in our sector, and we should expect an attack within the hour.”
The sound of heavy machinery moving around behind their trench made Sheridan look back. He grinned when he saw a column of engineering equipment moving toward them. He jumped out of his trench and ran to greet them. There were eight vehicles in total; four were armored bulldozers. There were also two Raptor minelayers and two direct fire support vehicles.
The lead vehicle stopped. The passenger-side door opened, and a short man with a bushy beard jumped down. “Are you in command?” asked the engineer.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” replied Sheridan.
The engineer saw the lieutenant’s insignia and saluted. “Sir, I am First Sergeant Waltz. We heard you were in a bad way up here so on our way back to base we kinda got lost. You know how it is, the damned satellite GPS system never seems to work when you need it the most.”
“God bless you, First Sergeant. Do all your vehicles have comms?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, I’d like you
to break your forces down into two teams with two dozers, a Raptor, and a fire support vehicle in each. Place them on the flanks of our position and be prepared to use your assets on order.”
“Will do, sir.”
“With your little navigational error, Sergeant, you may have just saved the entire Sayan Highlands.”
Sheridan waved at the vehicles as they drove past him. The Raptor automatic minelayers would create a nasty surprise when the Kurgans decided to resume their attack. Sheridan walked back to his trench feeling, for the first time since he stepped foot on the Devil’s Rock, that they might be able to hold it.
A voice shouted out in the night. “Hey, you, get away from him!”
It was Adams.
Sheridan began to sprint.
A shot rang out, followed right away by another.
Sheridan leaped over a boulder and landed back inside his trench. He found Adams and a soldier grappling over Colonel Denisov’s body. Sheridan lashed out with his right hand and hit the unknown attacker on the side of his head. The soldier staggered back slightly before dropping to his knees to pick up his pistol. Sheridan grabbed Adams by the collar and pulled him out of the way. He saw the man about to get the gun and smashed the heel of his boot down hard on the assailant’s hand. With his other foot, Sheridan kicked the weapon out of reach. He drew his own pistol and thrust it against the man’s head.
“Keep your hands where I can see them and get to your feet,” ordered Sheridan.
The soldier started to get up. At the last possible second, he launched himself at Sheridan, knocking him back against the rocky wall of the trench. Sheridan fired off a shot, but it missed and went wild. The attacker shot out his right arm and took hold of Sheridan by the throat. With his free hand, he reached for his bayonet.
Sheridan fought to break his assailant’s grip. It was no good. It was like being trapped in an ever-tightening vise. His throat was on fire.
A flash of light filled the trench as Adams fired his pistol at the back of the soldier’s head.
Renegade (The Kurgan War Book 7) Page 22