“I don’t like that idea.”
“Nor do I. We’re going to be throwing undertrained people at battles for a while. It’ll get worse if we go to war, you know that. They’re already expanding at three times the maximum projected rate, and kids like that are falling through the cracks in the training program.”
“Then we’re just going to have to make sure we stop them when they get to us,” Cooper replied. “If the brass can’t train them up properly, we need to make the difference. Got a list of recommended promotions?”
Nodding, Forrest said, “For the whole damn company; I was working on that list most of yesterday. Kept me distracted while those big battlewagons outside decided whether we lived or died. Going to be a ceremony in half an hour, that’s why I came up here. Brownworth and Esposito want you there.”
“Any mustangs?”
Shaking his head, the veteran replied, “We’re three officers down, but only one permanently, and we’ve got a spare. The platoon sergeants do most of the work anyway.”
“Yeah, but we’ve got to make it look good. That's what the officers do, isn't it?”
“See, you’re learning.” Another crack made them both pause, Forrest looking up the shaft, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That’s one of Third Platoon’s guard posts. No-one’s called a general alarm, so let’s not go mad. Just round up a squad and get it up there; I’m going to take a look.”
“Right.” Forrest pushed away, turned, and said, “Be careful, sir. I heard that we won this battle.”
“Yeah, so did I. I wonder if the enemy got that memo,” Cooper replied, pushing off a wall to send himself flying towards the nearest access shaft, nimbly swinging up and leaving the old veteran behind to try and find some troopers who were ready for battle. He cursed under his breath as he pulled out his pistol, checking that the cartridge was fresh and longing for his rifle, still under the armorer’s care.
Ducking out into the upper level, he saw a pair of troopers looking out into the darkness, both of them with weapons raised; he recognized them from Third Platoon, both of them understandably jumpy. Had he been in charge, he’d never have authorized them for sentry duty in their current state.
“What’s going on up here,” he asked.
“There’s something out there, sir,” one of them said. “Don’t know what.”
Another crack sent Cooper diving into cover, his pistol pointing into the gloom, and he said, “And you didn’t think anyone else needed to know about this? Sound a General Alarm, do it now!”
“Our Sergeant said…”
“I don’t give a damn what he said. Do what I say, or you’ll spend the next week cleaning the walls of this rock with toothbrushes. Move!”
The trooper started to enter a code into his communicator, and a siren echoed up and down the corridor. For a second, Cooper hoped that simply knowing that they had been spotted would deter the enemy, but a long cylinder began to tumble down the passage towards them.
“Grenade!” he yelled, hugging the wall. It didn’t explode; smoke started to pour out of it, and he struggled to lower his night-vision goggles as it began to full the corridor. He could see one of the guards tumbling out of cover, and reached up to grab him, just a little too late to stop the enemy bullet finding its mark. The figure went limp as he pulled him down, placing him carefully into position.
“Get him to a medic,” he told the surviving guard, “And tell Forrest to move. I’ll hold the fort.”
He turned back to the corridor up ahead, firing a couple of blind shots that didn’t seem to intimidate the enemy at all; four shapes kept moving forward, drifting in towards his position. Two more alarms sounded, warnings from other perimeters, a strike designed to hit them when they had been lulled into a false sense of security.
More shots rang out over him, keeping him pinned down; they couldn’t hit him in his current position, but they could stop him doing anything about their approach. The smoke was gradually dispersing, and he could just about make out the features of the incoming soldiers, unmistakably Neander. He lined up to try and take a shot at the leader, but before he could pull the trigger, the figure tumbled back to the deck.
Looking back, he saw Forrest moving forward, half a dozen troopers in his wake, a spare rifle in his arms which he tossed to Cooper. The corridor echoed with the noise of a quick exchange of fire, and one of the reinforcements crashed to the wall, clutching his arm, but two of the enemy wouldn’t be a problem any more.
“Come on,” Cooper yelled. “Let’s go get ‘em!” He pushed out of cover, firing a round as a distraction, and hurtled down the corridor past the dead and dying Cabal soldiers. If this was a major attack, they had to try and turn it around, show that they were ready to respond. The last of the attack group surrendered, the wounded Espatier dropping back to cover him.
“Which way?” Forrest asked
“Over to the left,” Cooper said. “Last man hangs back to hold the junction, the rest take down whatever is waiting for us.”
The end of the corridor turned out to have another six figures, all moving up, and Cooper’s unit managed to catch them in the open, killing one of them with a clean shot before they could take cover. Quickly, the Espatiers found hiding places of their own, Forrest providing a few seconds of rapid covering fire to buy them time to get to safety.
“We can’t hold this ground,” Forrest said. “No way to reinforce safely.”
“They’ve got the same problem,” Cooper said over a pair of enemy gunshots.
“So what, then? We’re going to wait until one side runs out of bullets?”
“No, Sergeant, I’ve got plans for this evening.” He flicked a switch on his belt, turning his compensation thrusters off, then spun around, firing six shots in quick succession to send him flying down the corridor before anyone could stop him. His squad started to give covering fire, picking off one of the Cabal soldiers who was foolish enough to stick his head up to get a better shot, and Cooper fired again to throw off the aim of the enemy.
He was traveling with more than enough speed to quickly send him flying past the enemy cover, and he couldn’t have had a better opportunity to take his shots, shooting three in three rounds, taking the time to disable them instead of killing them. That simply increased his speed, and after a few seconds more, the inevitable happened as he slammed into the wall, knocking all of the wind from him and leaving him tumbling in the air, gasping for breath.
Forrest and the others were on the case quickly enough that the two survivors didn’t have a chance to do anything about his temporary weakness; the one who foolishly decided to make the attempt paid for it with a bullet through the hand, Forrest’s gun leveled on his head.
“This is the end of the road,” Cooper gasped. “Time to call it a day.”
“Take them back down, sir?” one of the troopers asked.
“We are aware of what you will do to us,” the lead Neander said. “We will not submit to your torturers, and we will never yield, so you might as well kill us now.”
“That’s a very interesting interpretation of the Geneva Convention, but fortunately I’m in command here, not you,” Cooper replied. “What about the others back there?”
“One dead, two wounded,” Forrest said. “Both of them can be moved without any trouble; Winchester is sorting out some first aid right now.”
“Good.” He turned to the Neander, and said, “We’re going to be taking your weapons and all of your equipment, with the exception of any medical supplies. The Sergeant and I have enough experience with your kit that we’ll know if you try and sneak anything past us.”
“Then what?”
“Then you can go back to your lines, with a message to your commanding officer that we’ve got the upper hand and that he should consider surrender.” Waving Forrest over, he said, “Search them, Sergeant.”<
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“Can I have a word with you, sir?” Forrest said in a tone that made it clear that he was giving an order rather than a request.”
“Certainly, Sergeant,” Cooper replied with a smile, and the two of them pushed back, just out of earshot. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure that sending them back to their people is the best approach here.”
“All of them have wounds that are going to keep them out of combat and consume their medical supplies, not to mention their rations. If we take them back, then we have to feed and look after them, which will divert our people from the front lines.”
With a smile, Forrest said, “This is why you’re an officer. I’ll see its done.”
“Good,” Cooper replied, looking back at the battle scene. “This isn’t over. We’ve only barely won the battle, and we still haven’t won the war. Maybe it’ll sink in now.”
“Relax, reinforcements are on the way.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The only question is which side’s reinforcements will arrive first.”
Thank you for reading 'Take and Hold'. For information on future releases, please join the Battlecruiser Alamo Mailing List at http://eepurl.com/A9MdX for updates. If you enjoyed this book, please review it on the site where you purchased it.
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Look out for Battlecruiser Alamo: Traitor's Duty, coming in May 2015...
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Battlecruiser Alamo: Take and Hold Page 25