by Richard Fox
“The Kesaht are closing in much faster than we anticipated.”
Duke shrugged, then plucked a spare battery from the man’s harness. “That’s how it normally works.” He held up the battery. “For my armor.”
The PDF officer shifted nervously, opening his mouth as Booker helped herself to batteries from two other scouts.
She raised an eyebrow and he closed his mouth.
An explosion sounded on the other side of the bridge, suspiciously close to where Duke and Booker had traveled before spotting the PDF scout team. Trees fell. Plumes of snow burst into the air. The young soldiers crouched as low to the ground as was humanly possible.
“What the hell?” one of them said.
“Noise discipline. Get it together,” the scout leader said. He looked more carefully at Duke and Booker. “You knew they were coming. Man, you look rough. Don’t Strike Marines sleep?”
“Not enough,” Duke said.
“What was that explosion? I need to include it in my report.”
“We rigged a surprise for the lead vehicle. Should slow the Kesaht down,” Duke said. “Booker, get across this bridge and start transmitting our report at the fiber-optic relay. Try not to fall in the icy river.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” She strode toward a scout vehicle and started talking to the driver.
Duke stepped close to the scout leader. “The Kesaht aren’t far behind us. We’ve been watching them for days. Thousands. A major force that can’t be allowed to cross this bridge.”
Above them, the clouds opened up and snow fell in thick, lazy columns. Farther away, wind howled through the peaks.
“I don’t have authority for that kind of demolition,” the young officer said.
“I’ll take care of that. Just need a bit of denethrite.”
“Sir, I don’t think I can do that.”
“You’re an officer. I’m a sergeant. Don’t call me sir.”
“I don’t think I can surrender explosives to you, sergeant. Not in the ops plan.”
Duke rubbed his chin. “Tell them I just took it. They’ll believe you.”
The scout officer swallowed.
Duke held his gaze as he lifted a pack of denethrite from his armor. “Snipers. What a bunch of cocky prima donnas. That’s what you’ll say. No one will doubt it for a second.”
“The important thing is to stop the Kesaht,” the scout officer said.
“Yep.” Duke relieved three other scouts of their explosives and walked quickly away. By the time they were able to discuss what just happened, he was climbing under the bridge. Once his eyes adjusted, he searched for a maintenance platform and located a rickety rope catwalk that hadn’t seen use since Terrans arrived on Koen and sent out their survey and repair crews.
The scout vehicle with Booker and the PDF soldiers started up and raced toward the other side of the bridge. Duke paused, listening to the sound of wheels on the planks above him as cold wind buffeted his position. Narrow and covered with frost, the access way went from one end of the bridge to the other, hanging underneath the bridge like an embarrassing secret.
Frequent gusts of wind twisted the long, tapering catwalk. Snow whipped around support columns, concentrated through the narrow under-spaces of the bridge. There was barely room for his feet to walk one after the other. The grips, ropes made from local plant fibers, were almost too wide for him to reach at the same time. The alien design and jerry-rigged modifications made navigation more difficult than it should have been. He finally settled on leaning toward the right-hand railing, his kit and his patrol bag hanging awkwardly to one side.
Garrison would’ve actually proved useful here, he thought. Tactical entries were the breacher’s specialty. But he’d been to all the schools and was good at whatever demolition was needed of a Strike Marine team. Just once, Duke would like to have all their resources in one place.
“I’m standing here, missing Garrison,” Duke muttered. “Not happening. I need to get some sleep.”
Working quickly, aware the Kesaht would arrive at the bridge in minutes—maybe seconds—he located weak points in the main support beams and packed the denethrite charges on one side of each timber. The Terran engineers had bolstered the structure with good steel. Duke studied the puzzle for five seconds and decided his demolition package would work. Might not be pretty, but it would get the job done. The metal bracing had been added to prevent sway, not to support structural weight. Everything would come down once he blew out the ancient wood.
One, two, three, four, five—he inserted the detonators into the soft, malleable denethrite. Rushing now, he removed the time fuses from their safety case, set the countdown for five minutes and stepped away.
A cold shiver ran up his spine.
He glanced down the long underside of the bridge and calculated how long it would take them to get on top and then sprint to safety. “Ten is a good number.” He reset the timer for ten minutes and hurried upward.
Machine-gunfire chattered closer and closer to the bridge, explosions rocking the vertical ladder. Climbing up from the swaying catwalk proved far more difficult than he had anticipated. He could feel the seconds counting down.
His breath whistled from his helmet air filters as lactic acid burned through his legs, shoulders, and arms. His kit felt like a hundred extra pounds and his dexterous sniper gloves felt like mittens. He reached the top, burst into the open, and started across the bridge, heedless of enemy fire he could do nothing about.
Rakka sprayed their archaic but deadly machine guns at the scout vehicle smashed halfway through the guard rail and hanging toward the river. “Damn it, Booker. If you fell off this bridge…”
Bullets whipped past his head.
“I don’t have time for this.”
He ducked around the scout car, using it for cover as bullets punched through the lightweight metal. He ducked in, confirmed Booker wasn’t in it, and jumped back. He pulled a smoke grenade off his chest armor, yanked the pin, and lobbed it into the truck. Thick purple smoke billowed out of the shattered windows.
Gauss fire and gunfire zipped back and forth across the bridge, each passing second bringing an increased volume of fire from the Kesaht side. Rounds peppered the arch over the bridge, skipped along the ground, and pinged off the PDF scout car. He raced away, pouring on the speed.
“I’m running, he sees me, I’m down before he shoots,” Duke huffed, then belly flopped. Scrambling sideways to further avoid getting shot, he came to his feet and glanced back just as the scout car exploded from a bullet strike. The smoke screen across the bridge grew thicker.
“I’m up, I’m running, he sees me…” Duke charged across the bridge toward the guard tower on the friendly side of the bridge. A bullet slammed into his shoulder, deflecting off his armor but knocking him off-balance. He staggered forward to the ladder and scrambled up.
Duke dragged, kicked, and flopped his way into the large control booth. The modern addition to the ancient bridge was a nexus for lighting, communications, and the planned hydroelectric dam waiting to be built. There was a crossbar that could be lowered to prevent vehicle traffic if travelers weren’t being polite.
He looked around and found Booker treating an injured PDF scout. Two of the young soldiers took turns firing from a window, taking advantage of the concrete and steel fortifications up to the windows of the tower. Another scout stood shell-shocked in the middle of the room, fiddling with his rifle as though it needed loading or cleaning. He looked pleadingly at Duke.
Ignoring the young man, Duke went to the windows and yanked down the blast shutters. “These things have gun ports for a reason. Use them.”
The PDF scouts who had been returning fire quickly adapted.
Duke took the report chip from Booker and tossed it to the noncombatant in the middle of the room. “Transmit that information back to Captain Pine. Do it now.”
“I…should be able to do that. One moment.” The man holstered his pistol, then pulled it out
again and looked at it. He faced the sound of combat.
Duke crossed the room in three powerful strides, grabbed the man by the front of his armor, and lifted him off the ground. “Function!”
The man’s eyes went wide and Duke chucked him toward the communication station.
“How you doing, Booker?”
“Little busy. Trying to save a life.”
Duke considered helping her but disregarded the idea. With Booker in medic mode and his report being transmitted, he felt free to get serious. He slid down the ladder and ran outside. There were no perfect locations, but he found a nice depression between two thorn bushes and tore open his rifle case. He snapped Buffy together and looked through his IR scope and saw a bunch of Rakka foot soldiers hurrying across the bridge. He glanced at the timer on his gauntlet screen: a flashing 0:00.
“Odd. I was expecting more of a boom when denethrite goes off,” he muttered.
Wind drove ice and snow across his vision, screaming like banshees through the bridge supports. He spread his feet wider than usual as he knelt to keep his balance and pulled the weapon in tight with his support strap. Heat images advanced toward him. He adjusted his scope for a sharper contrast. At the far edge of the bridge were barely recognizable Kesaht vehicles. More foot soldiers poured across the bridge.
Most of them advanced in combat formations, shooting systematically now that their officer had caught up to discipline them. A small group loitered near the bridge supports where he had placed the explosive charges. He dialed in his scope for greater resolution, sacrificing his peripheral view of the others who were closer and clearly looking for a fight.
It took two tries, but he found what he was looking for. A Rakka grunt held a handful of detonators. The wild-haired, crudely armored soldier looked rather nervous with what he carried. A massive Sanheel officer lashed him with a whip and shouted.
Duke considered the situation. The explosives weren’t going to go off. The bridge wasn’t going to fall. The lime-faced Sanheel had a good deal of badges and rank symbols on a sash across his chest—probably a senior officer, which probably meant a large force was coming this way.
Rakka scout vehicles edged onto the bridge. Duke charged up his rifle to full power, then aimed at the self-important-looking Sanheel officer. Driving snow would prevent a precision shot, but he had no doubt he could kill the tusk-faced, green-skinned Sanheel thing. From the way he was carrying on, he was a top-tier target.
Additional Kesaht units arrived, both Rakka and junior Sanheel. He didn’t see tanks but knew it was just a matter of time. He took a deep breath, held it, then let it ease out as he timed the beats of his heart. He lowered the rifle slightly to aim at the Rakka crouched next to one of the bridge struts.
He knew where he had placed the charges. The unfortunate Rakka holding the detonators couldn’t crouch low enough to save himself. Duke felt Buffy vibrate slightly against his shoulder; fully charged and ready to fire a bullet with enough kinetic energy to shatter a boulder or punch through the hull of a destroyer.
Duke fired and the recoil slid him back a foot. The bullet shot through the Rakka, exploding the alien like a popped balloon, and into the bridge below his feet. Duke didn’t see if the shot was true, but the ensuing explosion that slapped against his body and knocked him a few inches into the air told him he’d aimed well enough.
Light from the explosion shone through the raging tempest a microsecond before the sound hit Duke. He kept his face down and covered his ears with his hands. Shrapnel winged overhead. Support beams groaned, twisting free of the superstructure. Instinctively, Duke crawled toward the control booth near the PDF scouts.
The collapsing section of the bridge pulled at him like a black hole. Fire plumes reached into the sky, illuminating the storm. Dozens of Rakka and a few Sanheel pinwheeled toward the ice-clogged river a hundred meters below. The senior Sanheel leapt clear of the destruction, three hooves clattering and scraping the far side of the bridge foundation. One foreleg was missing at the knee, spraying blood across the snow.
“Slip backward! Lose your footing, you ugly bastard!” Duke looked for a shot before the snowfall increased, whiting out the canyon. Unknown range, vicious crosswinds, and poor visibility—it was a no-go. Duke slapped a fresh battery into Buffy.
No shot.
****
Bullets shot across the shattered bridge in random bursts as Duke dropped off the ladder attached to the back of the guard tower as it shuddered in the wind. The structure leaned and swayed as Duke jogged toward a cluster of utility trucks with gauss machine guns mounted to the backs and armor bolted to the sides.
The bridge on Duke’s side of the river collapsed, the breaking metal sounding like a drawn-out crash of plates broken in a kitchen.
“Don’t you duck?” asked one of the PDF soldiers from a pintle-mounted weapon.
Duke rapped his knuckles against the jerry-rigged armor. “They’re firing blind. I’d hate to duck into a round. I’d be dead and feel stupid.”
He checked for room in any of the vehicles, but all were full of soldiers huddling together for warmth. “You guys really going to make me hoof it out of here?”
“No, sergeant,” the scout leader said, pointing to a jeep next to an idling ambulance.
Booker opened the back door of the ambulance and waved Duke over. Two soldiers lay on stretchers as blood dribbled out of the compartment.
“We’re waiting on you!” she shouted, pointing at the jeep.
“Moving,” Duke said as he opened the back door to the jeep and found a seat open. He unslung his sniper rifle, hopped inside, and looked at an officer in the front right seat.
“Any reason we haven’t unassed this place?” the sniper asked.
The officer touched an earphone, then slapped his driver twice on the shoulder.
“Finally got a head count,” the officer said.
Duke knew he shouldn’t give orders, but there wasn’t time and he was out of patience. “All right, what’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Travis England.”
The jeep skidded against the icy road for a moment, then lurched forward as the sound of incoming artillery pierced the raging storm. Duke smiled.
The driver looked around in alarm. The lieutenant seemed on the edge of panic.
“Relax, sir,” Duke said. “That’s our arty. I know that sound from Cygnus. General Allan’s busy ruining the day of any Kesaht forces near the bridge. Those are ranging shots. In about two minutes, it’s going to get ugly.”
“But the bridge is out,” England said.
“Still plenty of bad guys on the other side of the canyon, dicks in hand, trying to figure out if they can repair the bridge. Nice bunch of targets,” Duke said.
“You’re awfully sure about that,” England said.
“Permission to go faster?” the driver asked.
“I’d really rather not skid off the road and into a tree,” Duke said. “I like winning. Die in something stupid like a car crash, it tarnishes the legacy.”
“Take it slow,” the lieutenant said. “Thanks for the help back there. That was some quick thinking with the bridge.”
“Denethrite is like any explosive. It’s shock-sensitive,” Duke said.
“What about the detonators?”
“Kesaht removed them before the timer hit zero. I didn’t have enough time to rig a tamper-proof fuse. Still, got the desired effect when I hit the denethrite with a full power shot.” He stuck a finger into an ear and wiggled it. “We’re lucky the Rakka didn’t drop the explosives into the river.”
“Duke,” Booker came over the IR, her voice weak in the storm, “I lost one of the wounded. Second one’s holding up better, but we need to get back to base.”
Duke clicked his tongue twice to acknowledge the transmission and debated informing the lieutenant and the driver of the news. The driver didn’t seem confident or competent behind the wheel, and giving him bad news that would spur him to drive faster and more
recklessly wasn’t going to help anyone.
Nothing could be done for the dead.
Duke pulled out his dip can and stuck a wad into his lip.
****
Thran’Ul kicked with one of his rear legs. An almost childish move for a Sanheel who learned to buck soon after their first steps. His hoof slammed a field doctor against a tree, but the doctor shouldn’t have mentioned that he was never going to fight as effectively with only one front leg and he shouldn’t have been standing behind Thran’Ul when he uttered the offensive words.
The two doctors in front of him were smarter. They kept their eyes down as they worked to fit a prosthetic leg to the bleeding stump at the end of his right forelimb.
“This is a very good unit, Honored Decarian. The very best we can do in the field,” one of the doctors said.
His companion was quick to agree. “Very rugged. Only a true war hero could dare have such an augmentation.”
Thran’Ul backhanded the man, sending him sliding across the icy gravel of the camp. “It is not an augmentation!”
He stared across the mangled, twisted bridge. Terran artillery had devastated both sides of the bridge abutments. Smoke drifted up from craters. Snow turned into steam in some of them.
Another barrage of artillery fell, splashing into the river and sending up plumes of water and ice. The bodies of his soldiers had long since been swept away by the current.
He summoned a Rakka thrall chief. “Send your people to the next crossing. Go with them and be sure they capture any human with a rail rifle they encounter. At all costs. Should I learn that you located the sniper and returned without him in chains, it will be your death. Bring me the head of the sniper and the rifle if you cannot take him alive.”
“My warriors fear meeting their fate at the hands of this winter demon,” the Rakka sergeant said.
“Their fate is their fate. Death to humans. Death to the murdering scourge of the galaxy.”
The Rakka grunted acknowledgment and turned away.
Chapter 11