Sheridan slung his rifle over his back and drew his pistol as did Cole. They ran to the stairwell, opened the door, and looked up. The stairs were deserted. The smell of smoke and dust hung in the air.
“After you,” said Cole, aiming his pistol up the stairs.
Sheridan took a deep breath and ran up the stairs until he came to the next floor. He brought up his pistol and waited for his friend to move past him. Within a couple of minutes, they were both sweating and breathing hard.
“Maybe we can walk the last ten floors,” said Cole, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Sounds like a plan,” replied Sheridan, wishing he had spent more time on his cardiovascular training.
All of a sudden, a door flung open and a dust-covered rebel soldier holding a bloody rag to the side of his head stepped out onto the stairs. He let out a surprised yelp before nervously laughing. He looked at Sheridan and said, “Sir, the Kurgan Army is massing for an assault on the west side of the building, and we could use your help.”
Sheridan felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Here was someone who desperately needed his advice and he was running out on him. Before he could say a word, Cole grabbed the man and pulled him into the stairwell with one hand while slamming shut the door with the other. Like a cobra striking its prey, Cole launched his forehead onto the surprised rebel’s head. The impact sounded like a pair of coconut halves being knocked together. The insurgent’s eyes rolled up into his head as his feet buckled beneath him. Cole caught the unconscious man and leaned him up against the door.
“There’s no time for subtlety,” said Cole. “We need to get to the roof before the Kurgs bring this building down.”
Sheridan knew his friend was right. He looked up the stairs and pushed on. He tried to block out the noise of the battle raging all around them. They were almost at the eighteenth floor when an explosion above shook the building. Fiery pieces of debris rained down on them. Smoke filled the stairwell, blinding and choking the two Marines. Sheridan felt a hand grab his shirt collar and pulled him out of the smoke, through an open door, and into a hallway.
“I think the stairs aren’t an option anymore,” said Cole, coughing to clear the muck from his lungs.
A second later, water fell like rain from the building’s fire suppression system.
“What do you suggest?” asked Sheridan, wiping the water and soot from his face. “We can’t turn back.”
Cole pulled out a pliable liquid grenade and said, “No, we can’t. But we can keep climbing. Come on, let’s find an office.”
They ran down the cluttered hallway until they found a locked room. Cole kicked in the door and ran inside. “Help me pile the furniture.”
Sheridan could see what Cole was thinking. He helped move a large desk into the middle of the room and placed a sturdy steel locker on top of it.
Cole climbed up the makeshift ladder and placed the shaped charge on the ceiling. He activated the grenade and leaped down. “Outside!”
Sheridan and Cole dashed out of the office with barely enough time to crouch down before the charge went off. The grenade had worked perfectly. A smoking man-sized hole in the ceiling awaited them.
An insurgent walked out of another office, holding a rifle in his hands. He saw the two Marines standing there and said, “What are you doing?”
“The stairs are gone,” replied Cole. He didn’t recognize the man. “We’re trying to reach the people trapped on the floors above us.”
“You can’t help them,” said the rebel. “They were hit by drone missile fire. No one could have survived the blast.”
“We still need to try,” said Sheridan.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll both have to head back down to the bottom floor,” said the insurgent. “Komada told me that if I saw anyone I didn’t recognize I should stop them from going any higher in the building. In fact, you’re to head back down the bottom floor to help fight the heretics.”
The bloody man must be psychic, flashed through Sheridan’s mind. He smiled at the rebel soldier and nodded. “Well, we can’t disobey Komada, now can we?”
“We must always follow his orders. The Kurdofan is wise and will guide us to victory,” replied the man, using the Kurgan name for a holy man.
“Say, could you help Mister Cole walk to the stairs? He injured his leg and is too proud to say so.”
“Boss . . . really?” said Cole, pretending to hobble on his left leg.
“Please, let me help,” said the rebel.
Cole nodded.
The man slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked to Cole’s side. Before he knew what was happening, Cole wrapped his right arm around the rebel’s neck and hauled him off his feet. With his left hand, he clobbered the man in the jaw, knocking his head to one side. He let the insurgent fall to the floor. When the stunned man tried to reach for his weapon, Cole kicked him in the side of the head, knocking him out cold.
“Let’s hope there aren’t any more men on the lookout for us,” said Cole, tossing the rebel’s rifle down the corridor.
“I agree,” said Sheridan. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Cole went first and climbed up to the next floor. The fire suppression system was still running, spraying water everywhere. A quick check told Cole they were alone. He bent down and helped Sheridan up. The pungent smell of smoke was thick in the air. Both men were soon covered in soot and soaked to the bone.
Sheridan looked at Cole. “I hope you have a few more grenades with you.”
Cole nodded and pointed to a room across the hallway. They hurried over and repeated the drill. The view on the next floor was right out of hell. Several small fires still smoldered. The charred corpses of the insurgents who had been hit by the Kurgan missiles lay on the floor in their agonized death throes.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” said Cole, looking for anything he could use to build another makeshift ladder. Everywhere they looked the furniture had been blasted to pieces. He pointed to the end of the corridor and said, “Follow me.”
They rushed to the stairwell. The door had been blown off its hinges. A jagged piece of metal that had once been part of the hand rail to the stairs hung down from the floor above them.
“You first,” said Cole to Sheridan.
“Why me?”
“If it doesn’t hold your weight, it’ll never hold mine.”
“Swell,” muttered Sheridan under his breath. With no other option left to them, Sheridan bent at the knees, jumped up, and wrapped his hands around the railing. When it didn’t collapse under his weight and send him plummeting to his death, Sheridan climbed hand over hand until he could jam his right foot into a hole in the wall. Sheridan waited there a few seconds while he caught his breath. With one last push, he hauled himself onto the floor.
“How is it up there?” called out Cole.
“The floor is a bit slick, but at least the stairs are still intact. You start climbing while I let Tarina know where she can pick us up.”
Cole nodded. Before jumping, he emptied his pockets of anything that would add to his weight. He laid his rifle at his feet and slid his pistol into a pocket before saying a silent prayer. “Here I come,” called Cole as he leaped up and grabbed the railing in his hands. The instant his hands wrapped tight around the metal it shuddered and dropped down a couple of meters.
“Alan!” screamed Sheridan as he dove for the railing and grabbed it as firmly as he could. He swung his legs around and jammed them against the wall to help stop the railing from falling any lower.
“Do you have me?” asked Cole.
“Yeah, but hurry,” grunted Sheridan. “I don’t know how long this railing will stay in one piece.”
With his life at stake, Cole hauled himself up the bar until he could see Sheridan’s feet. He let go of the railing with his right hand and grabbed hold of Sheridan’s leg. Cole swung around and used his feet to climb the last meter and a half until he lay on the floor next to his friend, happy to be alive.
“Choose a low-rise building next time,” said Cole as he took several deep breaths into his aching lungs.
Sheridan rolled over and saw the door leading to the roof. He patted Cole, stood up, and made his way to the door. Sheridan swore when he found it was locked.
“Move,” warned Cole as he brought up his pistol and fired three rounds into the lock, shattering it.
The door swung open and fresh air rushed inside.
“How long until the shuttle arrives?” asked Cole.
“Damn,” said Sheridan. “I forgot to call.”
“It’s okay. I forgive you this time. You were kind of busy saving my ass. Why don’t you call them now?”
Sheridan nodded and reached for his communicator.
Cole worked his way past Sheridan and took up a position by the open door. He sat down and brought out his pistol in case it was needed.
“They’re on the move,” announced Sheridan as if he had just heard the best news in his life. “ETA, five minutes.”
“Let’s hope the building doesn’t burn down or get blasted to rubble before they get here,” said Cole.
Sheridan tutted. “The glass is always half empty with you, isn’t it?”
“I’d be a lot more optimistic about things if it weren’t for those three bodies lying out in the open.”
Sheridan moved next to Cole and looked out on the roof. Less than twenty meters away lay three dead insurgents. He looked at Cole and said, “Drone missile fire?”
Cole shook his head. “There’d be a bloody great big hole in the roof from the missile strike. They look to me like they were shot. Something or someone else killed those men.”
“A sniper?”
“Maybe, but we’re on top of the tallest buildings around here. So a sniper is probably not the answer.”
Sheridan was in no mood to play riddles. “What killed them then?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we’re alone up here.”
Sheridan’s blood turned to ice. “I have to warn Tarina not to approach the building.” He reached for his phone just as a burst of gunfire tore through the air. The comms device in Sheridan’s hand was struck by a bullet and shattered into dozens of pieces.
“Get back!” hollered Cole as he dove to the ground, hauling Sheridan with him. Bullets peppered the wall where they had been sitting only a fraction of a second ago. With his right foot, he kicked the door closed.
Sheridan’s hand hurt like hell. He looked down and saw a piece of plastic sticking out of his palm. With his teeth clenched tight, he yanked the object from his flesh.
“Use this,” said Cole, handing him a clean piece of fabric to use as a bandage.
“Did you see who fired on us?” asked Sheridan as he wrapped the cloth around his bleeding hand.
“Yeah. It was a hunter-killer robot. A nasty eight-legged one. The Kurgs must have dropped one on the roof to stop anyone from trying to make an escape.”
A chill ran down Sheridan’s spine at the thought of a robot loose on the rooftop and no way to warn his friends of the danger they were flying toward.
Chapter 12
“Any word from Michael or Alan?” asked Tarina.
“None,” replied Wendy. Her voice couldn’t mask her fear. “They’re probably just too busy to answer my calls.”
Tarina felt helpless. She wasn’t used to being in the co-pilot’s seat. If she were busy flying the shuttle, she could concentrate on the task at hand. Instead, her mind was filled with dozens of reasons why they couldn’t reach their friends, and none of them were good. From her seat, Tarina could see two Kurgan UAVs sent to accompany them into the city. She knew they were there to ensure they didn’t try to interfere in the battle raging in the streets below. Tarina glanced down and saw a column of burning armored vehicles which had blundered into a rebel ambush. The buildings near the destroyed vehicles were also caught up in the conflagration slowly consuming the city. The only consolation she had was that Kitan, the woman who had saved Wendy’s and her life on a Kurgan prison planet, wasn’t with the rebel forces in the city. She and her children were in the countryside, hiding from the authorities who wanted her for spreading sedition.
Colonel Wright sat in the seat beside her. His eyes were fixed on the flight console. With less than ten meters’ wiggle room inside their air corridor, Wright had elected to fly the ship himself rather than rely on the auto-pilot.
“I have our destination in sight,” announced Wright.
Tarina looked out of the cockpit window and tried to spot their destination. The thick clouds of smoke blocked her vision. She turned her head and looked at a map of the city on her computer console. Less than five kilometers away was their destination. Her pulse began to race. Tarina had to fight the urge to take the controls and apply power to the craft’s engines. Their orders from the Kurgans had been quite specific. Any deviation in course or speed and they would be targeted for destruction by the drones accompanying them. Trust was still hard to come by on either side.
“Time to the building?” asked Tarina.
“Two minutes,” replied Wendy.
Two minutes may have not sounded like a long time, but to Tarina, it was an eternity. In war, people died in seconds. She closed her eyes and prayed that they would find her friends alive.
Chapter 13
Sheridan glanced at his watch and saw they were running out of time. “They’ll be here soon. We have to do something.”
“Looks to me like we only have one option open to us,” said Cole as he reached over and removed two grenades from Sheridan’s bandolier. “The Kurgan drone tracks its prey using a motion sensor. So I say we give it something to fire at.” Cole juggled the two grenades in the air.
Sheridan scrunched up his face. “With all of your years in the Marine Corps, that’s the best you can come up with?”
“You’re free to suggest something else, but need I remind you that the clock is ticking?”
Sheridan took a grenade from Cole’s hand. “I guess we don’t have a better path open to us.”
“Aim for the square box on top of the robot’s turret,” said Cole.
Sheridan nodded and moved to the other side of the doorway.
Cole winked. “On three.”
Sheridan raised a hand. “Wait, is this a real three?”
“This time, yes.”
Sheridan nodded and placed his thumb over the grenade’s arming button. The instant Cole said three he booted open the door. A hail of bullets struck the wall behind them. Both men threw their grenades as far as they could onto the roof. A split second later, they sprinted out of the doorway, firing as they ran.
The robot spotted the grenades flying through the air and swung its twin light machine guns around to fire. The drone’s targeting computer locked on and was about to engage when its tracking system picked up movement from behind it. In the blink of an eye, the robot identified the two men coming toward it as the real threat and turned its weapon’s system around to fire. It was a fraction of a second too late. Struck by dozens of bullets, the brain of the drone shattered. The robot fired blindly at the last spot it had seen its attackers.
A white-hot pain streaked across Sheridan’s left arm. He grimaced but kept on firing. In seconds, he emptied his pistol’s magazine and rushed to replace it with another. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cole dive forward and come up right next to the robot. He slammed a flex grenade onto the drone’s turret and dove for cover. With nowhere to run, Sheridan dropped to the ground and covered his head with his hands. The robot exploded sending jagged pieces of shrapnel flying through the air. To add to the thunderous racket, the two grenades thrown as a distraction also went off. Sheridan hesitated a second before raising his head. He saw one of the shattered drone’s legs lying next to him. He slowly got to his feet and looked over at the robot. The turret had been blown off and was nowhere in sight.
“Oy, you’ve been hit,” said Cole.
Sheridan glanced at
his arm and saw a dark patch of blood spreading from his wound. He flexed his arm and felt a sharp pain. “I guess I have. I don’t think it’s serious.”
“I don’t care if it’s serious or not,” said Cole. “Get back inside and let me take a look at it.”
“It will have to wait,” said Sheridan pointing up.
Out of the smoke-filled sky came Wright’s shuttlecraft. Sheridan and Cole stepped back to allow the ship to come in and land. The second its landing struts touched down, a side door slid open and four Special Forces operators ran out and formed a cordon around the two Marines.
“Gents, you’re to come with us,” said one of the soldiers. The man had a thick Australian accent.
“After you,” replied Sheridan.
It took less than ten seconds for them all to scramble back into the ship and take their seats before Wright applied full power to the thrusters, sending the shuttle rocketing skyward. In the back of the ship, Sheridan looked out a side window as the light blue sky turned dark and then gave way to the stars.
“We’re safe now, Major,” said Cole. “Why don’t you let me take a look at your arm?”
“Sure, why not,” replied Sheridan. His voice was weary.
“Gents, no disrespect, but I’m cross-trained as a medic,” said a female soldier with short red hair and a jagged scar all the way down the right side of her face. “Perhaps I should take a look instead?”
“Be my guest,” responded Cole as he moved out of the way to let the soldier work.
Colonel Wright’s voice came over the shuttle’s speaker system. “Stand by; we are making our jump back to the fleet.”
Sheridan turned his head and saw the stars vanish in an instant, replaced by the cold blackness of a jump bubble.
“Well, there’s a sight for sore eyes,” said Tarina as she walked into the crew compartment. “That is you under all of that dirt and soot, isn’t it, Michael?”
Insurrection (The Kurgan War Book 6) Page 6