“White Company, stay below the tops of the barrack on your jumps,” he ordered. “The APCs have anti-air.”
“Too late sir,” Sergeant Bianchi replied. “I’m hit. Looks like Corporal Colombo is dead.”
“I’m hit, too,” Corporal Rossi added. “I will require a medic behind the middle barracks building.”
Figlio di puttana! Where had the Besquith gotten anti-air APCs? A Zuul heavy and anti-air APCs? It was almost as if they had known humans, with their jumping suits, would be coming.
With a couple of smaller jumps that stayed below the rooftops, he made it to the back of the last barracks building and found First Sergeant Valenti.
“Status?” Moretti asked.
“Our status is we’re pinned here behind this building for the moment. Normally, I’d just jump over them and hit them from behind, but with the anti-air APCs, we’re going to lose a lot of troops doing it that way. Also, the tank is a Zuul heavy. It’s going to have shields that will defeat the majority of our weapons, so attacking it is going to be problematic.”
“You said ‘for the moment.’ What’s going to change?”
“At some point, the tank is going to slag enough of the building that we won’t be able to hide behind it any more. When that happens, we will have to do something else. They might also have the armor come around to this side of the building. That would also force us into action.”
“Really, First Sergeant? You can’t do any better than that?”
“I assume you saw what was out there, right? We can’t shoot at the tank from a distance, because it has shields. We can’t fly up to it, because of the APCs. We can’t attack it on the ground because it’s a damn tank. I’m open to suggestions, because going out there is pretty much a death trap.”
The south end of the barracks building collapsed, leaving only a portion in the center at its full height.
“Well, we better think of something, because there isn’t going to be anything to hide behind soon.”
Second Platoon, First Company, Blood Drinkers
“I got one!” Corporal Stel-Ca reported.
“I got two of them!” Corporal Shah-Ca added.
Sergeant Creg-An didn’t doubt the scout’s claim; in addition to being one of the stealthiest people the sergeant knew, he was also the best gunner they had. He had painted a picture of a human in one of their suits on the side of his APC from their last battle. He’d get to add some victory slashes to it when they were done.
Unfortunately, the humans weren’t as stupid as he would have liked. After shooting several of them down, they stopped jumping high enough to be seen. Pity. Still, the ones behind the barracks building wouldn’t be going anywhere fast.
“We have captured the humans’ ship, and I have a major concentration of them pinned down behind the southern barracks building,” Sergeant Creg-An reported. “There is at least one company of soldiers in their suits here, and I believe it is closer to two. We await your assistance to finish them off.”
“We will be there shortly,” Staff Sergeant Cahl-Ga replied. “We are almost to the field. Don’t do anything rash.”
“I don’t intend to. I have five APCs and the tank, but I am not going to take them into a confined area without infantry support.”
“That is a good plan. Keep them pinned down, and we will be there soon. Feel free to kill as many of them as you can in the interim.”
“Understood.”
Entropy. Creg-An doubted the humans would wait for the infantry to show up. Humans rarely waited for anything, especially if there was something rash they could do instead. They were here, weren’t they, even though being here didn’t make any sense? They would do something stupid, no doubt, and he’d be ready.
“Fire!” he ordered, and the right end of the barracks building collapsed. A smile crossed his face; he’d always hated living there.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that he was not going to go drive between the buildings or get tied up in the terrain behind the barracks. His armored force had the advantage in the open. If any of the humans tried to assault them, they would die, no matter whether they came in on the ground or in the air. And the shorter he made the buildings, the easier it would be to swat them from the skies.
There would be plenty of blood to drink out of their silly metal suits by the time the sun came up.
Asbaran Force, HQ Building, Besquith Base
Mason led the troopers down the stairs to the first floor. Although the stairs were fairly wide, walking down any stairs in a suit was a challenge.
“Look out—” was all the warning he received, and then a massive weight crashed into him from behind, overbalancing him. He fell forward, head first, and his face slammed into the front of his suit as he hit the stairs. Stunned, he was unable to break his fall; he slid the rest of the way to the landing and across the hallway to crash into the opposite wall.
“Sorry, Top,” Otter said as the weight lifted from his back.
Mason climbed to his feet. Damn it. Several yellow lights were illuminated on his suit.
“Hey Top,” Lucky said as he picked his way down the last stairs, “if you’re all done doing…whatever it is you’re doing with Otter, there’s a light on at the end of the hall.”
Mason shook his head inside his suit. If there were any Besquith that hadn’t heard the humans’ second floor entry, even they had to be aware the humans were in the building now.
Still, there was no sign of a response to their intrusion. The hallway he was in ended at the building’s front door, with four doors along the sides and the door with the light showing from underneath it at the opposite end of the passage. The stairway also continued down to a basement.
“No reason for stealth now,” Mason said. He kicked in the closest door. Some sort of administrative facility. The other doors along the hallway led to similar rooms.
“Okay, let’s see who’s home.” He positioned himself to one side of the door at the end of the hallway, and Otter and Lucky took the other. Another well-placed kick gained entry to the room. Beyond a small outer office lay a larger executive-style office with a massive desk in the center of the room and an oversized armoire along one wall.
Like the rest of the floor, the office was empty, although it appeared to have been recently occupied.
Lucky ripped one of the doors off the room’s armoire.
“You know this is going to be the boss’ office, right?” Mason asked.
“I wanted to make sure there weren’t any Besquith hiding inside it.”
“You couldn’t have just opened it?”
“I guess I could…but there might have been a Besquith in it!”
“And that’s why we don’t get nice toys, isn’t it, Top?” Otter asked.
“Damn right.” Mason surveyed the room. “All right, there aren’t any other places for them to hide, or for us to destroy, so they must be down in the basement.”
The troopers returned to the stairs. “Hey, Otter, try not to tackle me this time, okay?” Mason asked.
“You got it, Top.”
Mason crept down the stairs, or as much as he could creep in a half-ton suit. The building was eerily quiet, which amplified the noise the suits made on the stairs. The hairs on the back of his neck were rigid; whatever was going to happen would happen down here.
Reaching the landing, Mason eased out to look both ways before stepping out. Nothing in either direction, aside from a few holographic pictures of places Mason didn’t recognize hanging on the walls. There was a door at each end of the hallway, about 20 feet away in each direction, and a third on the opposite wall.
Mason crossed to the opposite door and waved the other troopers over. Pulling out a grenade, he kicked in the door and threw the grenade into the room. The weapon detonated and the troopers poured into the room to find it empty; instead of Besquith, the room was full of mostly destroyed monitors. The room appeared to be a command center, and the monitors that weren’t destroyed sh
owed portions of the base. Most of the scenes were peaceful, except for one of a large building that had fallen down on one end; some sort of beam weapon was working to level the other end of it.
A large conference table dominated the center of the room; it sagged on the right where the grenade had blown off two of its legs.
“Damn it,” Mason said. “There has to be some sort of duty section here, or they wouldn’t have all of this gear on. Let’s go.”
He led them back to the hallway and down the hall to the right. They stacked at the door, and Mason kicked it in.
The soldiers charged into the room to find yet another empty room. “What the hell?” Mason asked. The room was a communications center, with a large number of radios, laser uplinks, and other devices.
Without warning, Otter blew up.
Cockpit, Dropship Two, Besquith Base, Planet Moorhouse
“Colonel Shirazi, we need your assistance at the starport. There are several tanks here that appear to object to our presence.”
“What?” LT Tom ‘Harv’ Walsh asked. “Who’s that? And where the hell did they get tanks?”
“Sounds like one of the Vindi’s pilots,” his copilot, LTJG Michael ‘Salty’ Morton, replied. “No idea on the tanks…but why would the Vindi care? Aren’t they supposed to have returned to space?”
“I thought so,” Harv replied. “They’ve got that civilian girl onboard. They were supposed to return to space to keep her safe. How about giving them a call to find out what’s going on.”
“Vindi, Dropship Two,” Salty radioed. “Say your position and condition.”
“We are in the southern portion of the starport landing area. We had an engine malfunction and were forced to land.”
“They chose to land in the middle of a battle?” Harv asked. “With a civilian onboard? What the hell were they thinking?”
“Who knows? Have you ever talked to the Jehas? They make my head hurt.” He switched to the radio. “What is your status?”
“Our status is not good. Our right engine needs repairs, and there are three tanks on the landing area next to the ship preventing us from going outside to work on it.”
“Can you see anything on the starport?” Harv asked.
“No, and I can’t use the night vision equipment with all that shit burning down there.”
“All right, then, we’ll have to go a little lower to find it.” Harv snapped the dropship over in a hard turn. “Tell him or her, or whatever it is, that we’re coming,” he said.
“We are?”
“You bet we are,” Harv said. “We have to; that’s our ride home.”
East of the Starport, Besquith Base
The force of the blast pushed LT Seville forward, adding speed to her steps. She thought she had seen a Besquith come around the outcropping just before the grenade exploded; hopefully, the weapon would slow them down a bit, although she doubted it would stop them entirely from chasing her.
She needed a plan. She couldn’t go west, as she would end up on the starport ferrocrete where she would be exposed and an easy target for the Besquith gunners. To the south and east, the rocky hillocks grew smaller and more infrequent, ultimately turning into a flat, arid plain…where she would also be exposed and an easy target.
That left heading north, which was perhaps the most dangerous of all; it led back toward the missile batteries. If she could get past them, though, she ought to be able to make it to the headquarters building at the north end of the field where the rest of Asbaran was currently located. She shrugged. At least the stupid wolves probably wouldn’t expect her to do that; maybe it would buy her some extra time.
She looped around a little further to the east then proceeded north. Most of the fires were going out, so there wasn’t as much light to navigate by; hopefully, that would also make her harder to track.
Something flipping around caught the corner of her eye. She still had the two pieces of parachute cord she had cut to make the grenade into a trap. Making a trap with her other grenade didn’t seem necessary at the moment, so she measured the cords, tied them into circles, and threw them over her head, fashioning a makeshift sling for her arm. The sling held her arm a little better, reducing the pain slightly. At least she didn’t feel like she was going to throw up all the time now.
She stayed to the east of the little hills, hoping to keep as many as possible between herself and the missileers, and passed the missile revetments which still had enough little fires burning inside them to indicate where they were. As she passed the last one, she froze.
A platoon of Besquith raced in from the east. She held her breath, worried that a single noise or smell would give her away, but they were moving so quickly none of them noticed her. Heavily-armed, they took up positions in the last missile revetment. Mama looked at her pistol. Inadequate before, it was completely unsuitable for going up against a platoon of frontline troops who were armed to the teeth. When she had been given the pistol, the armorer had told her the only reason for having it in combat was as a means to acquire a rifle. Judging by the Besquith platoon’s obvious competence and professionalism, she doubted she was getting one of theirs.
Without warning, an aircraft screamed overhead, no more than 50 feet above her head. She recognized the other dropship as it vanished into the night. What the hell was Harv doing?
With a roar, a surface-to-air missile lifted off from the revetment. A handheld one from its size, she doubted the missileer had been able to get a good lock on the ship before firing. She lost the missile in the dark once its motor burned out, but didn’t see an explosion. Lucky.
She hoped Harv wouldn’t come back so she wouldn’t feel obligated to do something about the missileer.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Asbaran Force, HQ Building, Besquith Base
Mason and Lucky were thrown to the side as the blast enveloped Otter. Lucky was the first up, and he made it to the doorway in time to see a Besquith go into the stairwell.
“Besquith!” he yelled, running down the hallway in pursuit. The door at the other end of the passage stood open. The enemy must have been hiding there.
He reached the stairwell in time to see the Besquith going around the corner above, but couldn’t get a shot. He charged up the stairs and rounded the corner.
Three Besquith waited at the top of the stairs. They fired and Lucky was hit; one of the MAC rounds pierced his armor and went through his stomach. Staggered, Lucky paused and was hit again in the shoulder, losing control of his left arm.
“Arrr!” Lucky yelled, summoning his strength. He started up the stairs and was hit two more times, but the rounds missed his human body inside the suit.
He reached the top of the stairs and clubbed the Besquith on the right with his rifle, slamming it to the floor. Turning, he swung the rifle like a machete, crushing a second alien’s chest.
The remaining Besquith shot him again with its MAC, the round passing through the center of his chest. He collapsed to the floor, and the Besquith ran off down the hall.
Lucky lay on the floor, trying to catch his breath, but failed. He turned up his suit’s heater, but grew colder and colder as the blood flowed out of his body.
Motion caught his eye as Mason ran up the stairs to join him.
“One…more,” Lucky said, gasping. “Ran…into that room.” His right hand reached out to point down the hall, then it fell to the floor as he lost the strength to hold it up.
Mason ran to the indicated door. Although he had shattered the locking mechanism on his last visit, someone had pushed the door shut and braced something against it. He stepped back and kicked the door with the full force of the suit, and the door shattered as did the chair holding it shut; pieces flew like shrapnel into the room. Mason crossed the anteroom to the office and found the Besquith. The alien stood behind the desk, and it looked up and snarled as he entered. The Besquith held a mini-torch in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other; judging from the
smoke curling from a small metal garbage can on the edge of the desk, the alien had already burned several documents.
“Don’t move!” Mason ordered as he walked through the door. He gestured with his rifle. “Come out from behind the desk.”
The Besquith stepped to the side, still holding the torch and papers.
Mason recognized the limp. “Well, Brel-Al, it’s so nice to see you again.”
“Did you bring the Flatar with you?” the Besquith asked. “When I’m finished with you, I’m going to eat him for dessert.”
“And how exactly do you intend to do that? You’re my prisoner.”
“Prisoner? I don’t think so.” The Besquith dropped both papers and torch into the can and dove behind the desk. Mason fired several rounds, but they went over the alien.
Mason ran to the desk and swatted the can off it. He rounded the corner of the desk; the Besquith was already rolling over, a laser pistol in his hand. Mason shot him twice in the chest, and the Besquith’s shot went high. He aimed and fired another bolt between the Besquith’s eyes, and the creature stilled.
Turning, Mason saw the torch up against a wall, which was starting to char. He picked up the torch, extinguished it, then reached down to pat out the embers on the papers scattered about.
“I need a medic in the first floor hallway ASAP,” Mason radioed. “The entranceway should be free of Besquith. Also, Colonel Shirazi, can you come into the building? I’ve got something for you.”
Corporal Epard was in the hallway in seconds, and Nigel shortly thereafter. “What is it?” he asked.
Mason handed him the stack of papers. “I can’t read these, but your good buddy Brel-Al was destroying them, so I figured you’d want ‘em.”
Asbaran Solutions (The Revelations Cycle Book 2) Page 24