Insurrection (The Kurgan War Book 6)

by Richard Turner

  “I doubt the admiral knew Kabar was a member of the Imperial Intelligence Service when he selected him.”

  “I’d pay good money for one of our own fire effects officers to be here with us.”

  “So would I.”

  The sound of shells passing overhead made Sheridan look up at the leaden sky. A couple of seconds later they hit the muddy ground on the rebel side of the ditch, sending plumes of muck into the air. Right away, canisters filled with super-heated smoke began to eject a thick, near-impenetrable cloud.

  Sheridan stood up. “That’s more like it.”

  Kabar ran back. “Sir, the second-in-command is a captain. He’s going to push forward a bridge layer to see if it can span the ditch.”

  “Does he have two with him?” asked Cole.

  “I didn’t think to ask,” replied Kabar. “Why?”

  “It’s an old engineering principle. If you want a bridge, or a breach, you need to try in two different places just in case one fails,” explained Sheridan.

  Kabar pointed at the armored column, “Sir, it looks like they’ve got two bridge layers, and they’re both on the move.”

  Sheridan smiled and tapped Kabar on the arm. “Okay, round up Corporal Kellin and his men and let’s see if we can help.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cole stood up and brushed the dirt from his uniform. “I guess it’s time to earn our pay.”

  Sheridan said, “We’ll follow in behind the second bridge layer and provide security while they emplace the bridge.”

  “We should be able to do that without getting in the way of the engineers.”

  Corporal Kellin’s men looked like ghouls coming out of the ground as they crawled out of their holes and stood up. They were covered from head to toe in mud.

  “What do you want them to do, sir?” said Kabar to Sheridan.

  “Have them follow Cole and me,” responded Sheridan “We’re going to provide security while the bridges are put in place.”

  As the second armored bridge layer drove past, Sheridan walked in its tracks. The threat of stepping on an anti-personnel mine was first and foremost in Sheridan’s mind.

  “Walk in the tracks!” bellowed Cole at a couple of Kellin’s engineers who weren’t paying attention. The men hurried to get their feet into the path created by the heavy-armored vehicles.

  The two bridge layers split apart until there were one hundred meters between them. Right away, the steel bridges, folded in two halves on the chassis of the vehicles, began to rise.

  “How long will it take them to build a bridge?” Kabar asked Sheridan.

  “If they’re half as good as our engineers, it’ll take them about two minutes to emplace their bridges,” replied Sheridan.

  Cole looked at Kellin and said, “Spread your men out. We’ll provide support from this side of the bank.”

  Kellin nodded and rushed to place his men in position.

  The engineers who had come with the bridge layers jumped down from their vehicles and got ready to secure the makeshift bridge to the ground.

  Sheridan looked back toward the rear of the Kurgan forces and felt a wave of relief as dozens of landing craft descended from the clouds. The first wave of Old Guard troops had arrived. It would take them nearly an hour to get the two divisions onto the planet’s surface. Plenty of time for something to go wrong, he thought to himself.

  Chapter 27

  “They’re both in place,” announced Sheridan, watching as several squads of Chosen engineers ran forward to secure the bridges to either side of the ditch.

  “Record time, too,” said Cole, checking his watch.

  “Is this it?” asked Kabar.

  “No, this will undoubtedly have been repeated four or more times down the line,” explained Sheridan. “We only get to see what’s happening in our small part of the world.”

  “What’s that?” said Kellin, pointing to the far side of the ditch.

  Sheridan turned to see what the corporal was looking at. His eyes widened when he saw a swarm of hunter-killer robots crawl out of the ground. The killing machines had eight legs and a bulbous turret mounted on the top of the robot. Twin machine guns controlled by a motion and thermal sensor made them among the most efficient killers in the Kurgan military’s arsenal.

  “Get down,” hollered Cole, dragging Sheridan with him to the wet ground.

  Trapped out in the open, the combat engineers were cut down in seconds. None of them survived the deadly fusillade. The sound of hundreds of rounds ricocheting off the thick steel chassis of the bridge layer was like hail hitting a steel roof during a summer storm.

  Sheridan grabbed Kabar by the arm and pulled him in close. “Get to a radio and call in some close support. It doesn’t matter what kind it is, just get us some.”

  Kabar nodded and crawled on his stomach back toward an armored personnel carrier to get help.

  Cole turned on the power to his grenade launcher. “Time to see if they really improved this thing or not.” With that, he popped his head out from behind the back of the vehicle, laid his sights on a drone, and pulled the trigger. With a loud pop, the armor-piercing grenade shot forth and struck the robot in the turret, blasting it into dozens of pieces.

  “Damn,” said Sheridan to himself as he dropped to his stomach and looked underneath the bridge layer. He lined up his sight on a robot walking across the bridge and fired. With a loud boom, the drone exploded. The improved targeting system made it so it was near impossible to miss.

  “The other bridge,” cried out Kellin.

  Sheridan looked toward the second bridge and swore. With all of the engineers down, there was no one to stop them. The hunter-killers rushed across and began to fire on the column of armored vehicles. Sheridan bashed his hand against the side of the bridge layer when he saw two of the robots had remained on the bridge. They were cutting into it with lasers, trying to split it in half.

  “You try and stop the ones on this bridge,” said Sheridan to Cole, “and I’ll try to stop the other ones on the far bridge.”

  “Got it,” replied his friend. “Don’t forget to keep your head down.”

  Sheridan brought up his assault rifle and fired a grenade at one of the two robots trying to bring down the bridge. The drone, hit dead center, exploded. Off to his right, some of Kellin’s men had joined the fight and were trying to suppress the robots with automatic gunfire. Sheridan popped open the launch tube and ejected the spent cartridge. He rushed to reload another armor-piercing grenade before it was too late.

  All of a sudden, he found himself falling back into the mud. Sheridan lay there dazed, looking up at the sky. His head felt as if it had been kicked by an angry mule. He reached up and touched a groove dug along the right side of his helmet.

  “Are you okay?’ asked a Chosen engineer.

  “Yeah, my head’s gonna hurt like hell tomorrow, but I’m still alive,” replied Sheridan as he looked about for his rifle. He found it lying in the mud a few meters from where he had been kneeling. Sheridan crawled over and picked up his weapon. The whip-like crack of bullets flying over his head made him keep as low as possible in the muck.

  Chain guns and autocannons mounted on the engineer vehicles added to the weight of fire being thrown at the robots. Most never made it onto the bridge Cole was defending. Those that did were quickly annihilated.

  Sheridan turned over to check his rifle and let out a groan. His rifle was bent. He tossed it aside and looked around for a discarded weapon. A dead engineer lay a few meters away. At his feet was his rifle. Sheridan got up, ran to the dead man’s side, and scooped up his weapon. He made sure the rifle was functioning before turning to look at the far bridge. There was only one robot still on the bridge. It was cutting through the steel when it was struck by a 30mm cannon round. It flew up into the air, came down in the ditch, and smashed apart.

  A weary cheer rang out from the survivors.

  Sheridan got up onto his knees and looked around. All of the robots had b
een destroyed. Their metal bodies lay in the mud like mechanical spiders. A screeching wail of metal twisting and turning foretold the collapse of the second bridge. Weakened by the drones cutting into it, the bridge buckled in the middle and dropped down into the ditch.

  “We can’t afford to lose this bridge,” said Sheridan to Cole as he got to his feet. For a second, his vision blurred. His stomach knotted. Sheridan dropped to his knees and threw up. He retched out everything he had in his gut until he was doing dry heaves and gasping for air.

  “Hey, are you alright?” said Cole as he ran to Sheridan’s side.

  He nodded and wiped the bile from his mouth. “I’m going to hate myself in the morning.”

  Cole helped Sheridan to his feet. “You’re lucky,” he said checking out the groove on Sheridan’s helmet. “Another couple of millimeters to the right and it would have hit you dead-on and probably killed you.”

  “My lucky day, I guess,” said Sheridan, trying to clear the fog in his mind.

  “Look, sir, you’ve got yourself a concussion. Take a couple of minutes to compose yourself. I’m going to see who is still alive and lead them across the bridge to secure the far side until someone comes to replace us.”

  Sheridan placed his back against the side of the bulldozer and slid down to the ground. He watched Cole leave.

  Kabar sprinted over and dropped to his knees. “A couple of fighter-bombers have been vectored over to protect the bridge.”

  “Okay, make sure they understand that we’ve pushed some troops onto the far bank to protect it,” explained Sheridan. “We don’t want the drones to engage our people by mistake.”

  “Right,” said Kabar, getting to his feet.

  “Also, find me a Kurgan doctor and send him to me right away.”

  “Have you been shot?”

  “No. I just need something for nausea and pain. Now hurry along before those planes get here.” Sheridan brought up his watch so he could check the time. He waited until the multiple images in his eyes all coalesced into one. The Old Guard would soon begin to move forward, and the real battle would begin.

  A female Kurgan doctor climbed out of the back of one of the vehicles and walked toward Sheridan. She was wearing body armor over the top of her ceremonial robes.

  “Good day, ma’am,” said Sheridan in greeting. “I’m really glad to see you, but I didn’t think they usually sent physicians this far forward.”

  “This isn’t supposed to be ‘this far forward’, as you say,” replied the doctor as she opened up a pouch on her belt and brought out something that looked like a silver pen. “My field hospital was going to be built somewhere around here. Unfortunately, most of my staff got scattered during the night, and I had to ask for a lift to get here.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here. Can you give me something so I can get back in the fight?”

  “Captain Kabar says you’re a Terran officer and not a Chosen soldier. Is this correct?”

  “Yes,” replied Sheridan, wondering why she would ask.

  “I can tell by the way he acts that he’s not a combat engineer,” said the doctor. “I don’t know what you two are doing here, but before I give you this injection, I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not working for the rebels.”

  Sheridan looked deep into her radiant golden eyes and smiled. “Ma’am, I’m not a rebel nor am I on your side. Admiral Kaar knows who I am. Regrettably, I can’t tell you why, but I need to get back on my feet so I can finish my mission before billions of innocent Kurgan civilians are killed.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” said the doctor as she pressed her syringe into Sheridan’s arm.

  In seconds, he felt the pain and nausea subside. “Thanks.”

  “I guess I’ll set up my hospital right here,” said the doctor, looking around. “I have a feeling I’m about to be inundated with casualties.”

  Sheridan stood. “That you are, Doc; that you are.”

  He was about to walk across the bridge to join Cole and the soldiers on the other side of the bridge when he heard the sound of planes diving down from the clouds. Sheridan stopped and looked up just as two fighter-bombers appeared. He could see something was wrong. The planes were lined up with the ditch and speeding toward the surviving bridge. He spun around and waved his hands in the air trying to get Kabar’s attention.

  A second later, the planes opened up. Thirty-millimeter shells struck the bridge tearing gaping holes in it. A laser-guided bomb hit it, blasting it apart.

  Sheridan threw himself to the ground.

  Shattered pieces of the bridge rained down on both sides of the ditch.

  As the fighter-bombers banked away, Sheridan jumped to his feet and ran to the APC where Kabar was talking to the engineer captain. He grabbed the engineer by the arm. “For God’s sake, call off those planes before they come back.”

  The officer looked at Sheridan and hesitated.

  “Do as he says,” said Kabar.

  The engineer hurried to contact the planes.

  Sheridan looked skyward, trying to see the fighter-bombers.

  “There,” said the Kurgan doctor, pointing at the horizon. Flying barely fifty meters from the ground were the planes. This time, they were lining up for a run on the column of engineer vehicles.

  “Hurry,” said Sheridan to the engineer captain.

  The fighters were less than five hundred meters and closing fast.

  “Pull up,” screamed the officer into his handset.

  At the very last possible second, the two planes shot straight up toward the clouds and out of sight.

  “That was too close,” said Sheridan.

  “Who were they?” asked the doctor.

  Sheridan shrugged. “Some of your people, I guess.”

  “Are you still alive over there?” said Cole in Sheridan’s headset.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “What about you guys?”

  “One soldier got hit by a piece of falling debris. He’s okay; he’s only got a broken arm.”

  Sheridan looked back at the smoldering remains of the two bridges. One had been cut in half, and the other blasted into a thousand pieces. He looked around the wreckage on the battlefield and a plan began to form in his mind.

  He popped his head back inside the captain’s APC and said, “Say, do you have a working bulldozer with you, Captain?”

  Chapter 28

  “So that’s your plan?” said Cole into his mic.

  “Yeah, brilliant, isn’t it?” replied Sheridan.

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t take too long. I don’t like being on the enemy side of the ditch with a handful of scared soldiers.”

  “Roger, I’ll see you shortly.”

  Cole looked around at the platoon of Chosen combat engineers trapped with him on the enemy’s side of the obstacle.

  “Is help coming, sir?” asked Corporal Kellin.

  “Yeah. Tell the men to keep their heads down and stay calm.”

  “Sir, why did our own fighters attack us?”

  “It was a mistake. It happens from time to time in war.”

  A terrified scream from somewhere off to Cole’s right turn his blood cold. He dropped down on one knee and looked over. His eyes widened when he saw a soldier struggling to pull what looked like a metallic centipede from his neck. A second later, another man screamed in horror. Firing broke out as panicked soldiers tried to shoot at the machines.

  “Crawlers,” said Kellin. His voice was full of fear.

  “What the hell are those?” asked Cole.

  “A form of anti-personnel mines. They zero in on a person’s body heat and attack.”

  A shiver ran down Cole’s spine. “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cole swore when another man tried to fire at on one of the crawlers but missed. In a flash, it scampered up his body and thrust a pair of steel mandibles into his neck. Blood gushed from the dying man’s wounds.

  “Screw this,” said Co
le, drawing his bayonet. He looked at Kellin. “Tell them their rifles are useless. Order them to use their bayonets.”

  Kellin nodded and brought his hands to his mouth to pass the order when one of the machines crawled out of the dirt and ran up his leg. “Help!”

  With his free hand, Cole grabbed hold of the crawler and pulled it from Kellin’s leg. It struggled and wriggled in Cole’s hand, trying to break free. Cole let out a snarl and brought his knife down onto the head of the machine. The blade penetrated the thin metal outer shell and killed its miniaturized computer brain.

  “That’s how it’s done,” said Cole to Kellin. “Now spread the word.”

  Kellin pulled out his bayonet and ran to help one of his men.

  Cole keyed his mic. “Boss, pick up the pace. We’re under attack over here.”

  “Come on, come on,” yelled Sheridan at the top of his lungs, waving his hands frantically in the air. He was standing where the second bridge had been brought down by the HK robots. The bridge had collapsed into the ditch, forming a V-shaped wreck.

  The operator of the armored bulldozer saw Sheridan and waved back. Pushed along the ground by the front blade of his bulldozer was a wrecked tank.

  Sheridan looked over his shoulder at the fight to the death happening on the other side of the ditch and swore. His best friend was trapped, and he wanted to get over there and help before it was too late.

  When the bulldozer was less than ten meters away, Sheridan moved to one side so the vehicle driver could carry on. Without stopping, the bulldozer pushed the hulk down into the ditch. It rolled over and came to a sudden halt in the middle of the broken bridge.

  Sheridan ran over and jumped onto the bulldozer. He tapped the driver on the arm. “That’s a good start. Push in two or three more wrecks, and we’ll have a makeshift bridge people can walk across.”

  The engineer nodded and placed the vehicle in reverse.

  Sheridan leaped down and sprinted to the destroyed bridge. He jumped onto the metal plating on the bridge and slid down until his feet touched the tank’s hull. He swung his rifle onto his back and crawled over the wreck until he was on the other side. Sheridan used the hand railings on the side of the bridge to climb out of the obstacle. The instant his feet touched the ground, he took off running.