“Two reasons. I enjoy theatrics; it’s a throwback to my college days. aAnd secondly, because, my dear captain, I know all about your pitiful force of Marines on the far side of the planet. I was able to buy your task force’s order of battle and operational orders for less than I would have expected.”
Abbas glanced down at his watch. “When your friends begin their assault in precisely fifteen minutes, they will do so straight into my air-defense missiles. Those that survive the initial barrage will be quickly rounded up by my people and brought here as entertainment for my guests. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other business to attend to.”
Sheridan and Cole were grabbed from behind and dragged back inside.
“Boss, what do you want us to do with these two?” asked a white-haired guard with a deep scar running down his grizzled face.
“Take them below and lock them up with the other prisoners,” replied Abbas. “When their comrades begin to fall from the sky, throw them both into the pit with the bears. They can die knowing just how badly they and their pathetic friends have failed.”
Chapter 3
The first thing Sheridan and Cole smelt smelled when the elevator opened was the musky smell of the bears pacing back and forth in their cages at the far end of the dimly lit hallway.
Sheridan was pushed from behind. “Walk or I’ll shoot you in the leg,” warned one of the guards. “It’ll slow you down for the bears.”
“Yeah, they won’t have to work too hard for their supper meal for a change,” added another mercenary.
Sheridan stood up straight and began to walk, with Cole keeping pace right beside him. As they walked past the first row of cells, a hand reached out and grabbed Cole’s arm.
“Help us,” pleaded a terrified girl.
Cole turned his head and smiled. He gently took the girl’s hand off his arm. “Just hold tight, love. This will all soon be over.”
“For you maybe,” said the white-haired guard.
“You know, your face looks familiar,” said Cole to the guard.
“As does yours. I take it you were in the First Division a few years back.”
Cole snapped his fingers. “Yeah. Now I remember you. You were turfed out of the service for selling drugs.”
“Parade square soldiering got to be too dull, so I branched out into more lucrative work.”
Cole spat on the ground. “If you think working for someone like Abbas makes you better than me, you’ve lost your mind.”
“Whatever, soldier boy. I’m not the one about to be fed to a bear.”
Sheridan knew that Cole was trying to drag things out as long as possible. With four guards covering them. I, it was going to take split-second timing to overwhelm them before they could raise the alarm. Although they had been scanned by the guards at the front gate for concealed weapons, the scanner they used failed to detect the ceramic blades hidden in the folds of both men’s clothes.
“Quit stalling and get moving,” said the old mercenary.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sheridan saw Cole nod. It was time. With a practiced move, Sheridan pretended to trip over his own feet. His right hand reached for his belt and grabbed hold of one of his concealed knives. He turned to his right and jammed his blade straight into the neck of the closest guard.
The startled mercenary saw the move but was too slow to block the knife. In the blink of an eye, it struck home. Blood shot out like a red fountain.
Before the dying guard’s partner could react, Sheridan dove at him and tackled him to the ground. They rolled back and forth on the ground, desperate to get their hands around their opponent’s neck.
Cole was equally fast. He pivoted on his heel and smashed his right fist into the neck of the white-haired man, crushing his windpipe. The man let go of his pistol and reached up for his throat. Cole grabbed the weapon out of the air, turned it on the last guard, and shot a hole straight through the man’s forehead.
Sheridan felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Let him go,” ordered Cole.
Sheridan released the guard and rolled away. Before the man could reach his weapon lying on the floor beside him, Cole stepped forward and fired his pistol, killing the man.
“Down here,” called out a man’s voice.
Sheridan scooped up the dead mercenary’s rifle, flipped off the safety, and looked down the corridor.
“Help us, please,” the voice pleaded.
Sheridan jogged down the hall until he came to another cell. Inside, he could see about a dozen men. All of them looked like they were crews from the ships Abbas’ pirates had boarded.
“Step back,” ordered Sheridan as he brought up his rifle and fired into the cell’s lock, breaking it open.
A black man was the first out of the cell. He grabbed Sheridan by the hand. “Thank you, thank you. There used to be more than thirty of us jammed in there.”
Sheridan did not need to be told where the other men had gone. His blood began to boil. Before the day was out, he was going to make Abbas pay.
“Are you with the armed forces?” asked the black man.
“Yes, but there are only two of us here right now. Follow me. Master Sergeant Cole will give you some weapons to fight with.”
Cole had already blasted the lock off the cell holding the young girls. He turned to face his friend. “What do you want to do? We can’t stay here, not with the task force on its way.”
Sheridan looked over at the freed prisoners. “Who’s the senior man here?”
“I am,” replied a tired-looking man with a scraggly beard on his face.
“Okay, then you need to protect these girls. Sergeant Cole and I have to disable a missile battery or none of us is going anywhere.”
“I can fight,” said the black man.
“I know you can, but right now I need you and your comrades to look after these girls.”
The man nodded and took hold of a dead guard’s weapon.
“Lead on, sir, Cole said, grinning.
At the elevator, Sheridan spotted a control panel on the wall. He reached over and flipped a switch. At the other end of the corridor, the doors holding in the bears slid open. The beasts lumbered out into the execution pit. “Abbas is expecting a show. No need to deprive him of one,” Sheridan said to Cole.
On the first floor of Abbas’ home, the elevator doors slid open. Sheridan and Cole stepped out with their pistols held out in front of them. No one noticed them. A couple of men guarding the front doors were looking out at the commotion going on outside. All through the compound pandemonium reigned. A loud warning siren blared, signaling the beginning of the attack on the colony. Mercenaries ran to their stations. The tarps were pulled from the missiles as Abbas’ men made ready to bring down the approaching landing craft. Cole walked forward and raised his weapon, shooting both guards dead without hesitation.
“How long until the landing craft get here?” asked Cole.
“Two, maybe three minutes,” replied Sheridan.
“Where did you say the missile control room is located?”
“Over there,” Sheridan said, pointing to the heavily guarded building.
Cole reached down and dragged a guard’s dead body away from the door. He opened the door and popped his head outside. “Come on,” he said, tapping his friend on the arm.
Together they sprinted over to the nearest APC. “We’ll never make it past the security at the control room. However, we really don’t need to,” Cole said as he pressed a button on the back of the vehicle. A second later, the ramp began to lower.
Both men brought up their weapons. They opened fire the instant they could see inside, dispatching two men who had taken cover in the armored vehicle.
Sheridan went to step inside only to be grabbed from behind.
Cole said, “Have you ever taken any training on the Puma APC’s turret?”
“No. But I did familiarization training at the Academy.”
“Move aside,” said Cole, pushing Sheridan
out of the way. He ignored the dead bodies sprawled on the floor of the vehicle and crawled up into the turret. He knew about as much as Sheridan did on the turret’s fire control systems but would never admit it to him. Cole took a seat and looked down at a small panel. He reached over flipped on a red switch, which he hoped was the power to the turret. Lights all over the panel came to life. Cole grabbed hold of the joystick and turned it to his left. The turret hummed as it swung over. He looked into a small screen at eye level which showed him what the weapon’s sight was aiming at.
Sheridan heard Cole call out, “Where did you say that building was again?”
He turned on a screen in the back of the vehicle that showed what the gun was looking at. “Swing left!”
Cole heard the order and began to move the turret over.
“Stop! You’re going too fast. Back the turret up slowly.”
Cole brought the turret back as slow as he could.
Sheridan tapped the screen in front of him when he saw their target appear. “Stop! That’s it. Light it up.”
Cole flipped off the safety on the joystick with his thumb, silently praying to himself that he had selected the right ammunition, and then pulled back on the trigger. The whole vehicle rocked as the APC’s powerful forty-millimeter cannon opened fire.
Both Marines watched as the armor-piercing rounds tore through the walls of the building, shredding everything inside. Cole kept his finger on the trigger until he had nearly expended the entire belt of ammunition.
Below, Sheridan studied the picture on his screen. There wasn’t a living soul anywhere near the destroyed control room. “Looks like you did it,” he called out.
“Yeah, but the gig is up,” replied Cole.
Sheridan moved the picture on his screen and saw two APC’s turning their turrets in their direction. His blood turned cold. If they opened fire, they did not stand a chance. Sheridan yelled, “Shoot them!”
Cole hurried to line up his sight on the closest vehicle and pulled back on the trigger. The APC shook as he blasted the other vehicle. A red warning light flashed on the weapon control panel. Cole had fired off all their ammunition. His heart skipped a beat. He jumped down from the turret and grabbed Sheridan by the arm, hauling him out of his seat. They barely made it outside before the surviving mercenary APC opened fire, tearing off the turret Cole had been in mere seconds before.
They hurried to take cover behind a row of old wooden boxes. In the sky above them, they could hear the distinct sound of the landing craft’s engines as they raced to their pre-arranged landing zones. Escort gunships, racing just ahead of the approaching Marines, fired off a volley of missiles at anything that looked hostile. The first to go were the guard towers surrounding the compound. Next were any armored vehicles and defensive positions protecting Abbas’ fortified palace. Sheridan poked his head up and saw the APC that was hunting them vanish in a red fireball when it was struck by an incoming missile. The force of the impact sent him flying back against the wall, knocking the wind from his lungs.
“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Cole said, pointing back at Abbas’s home.
Sheridan rolled on his side and tried to take a breath. Slowly, painfully, his lungs filled with oxygen. He felt Cole pick him up onto his feet. His head was spinning and his one good ear was ringing. He thought he heard Cole say, “No time for that; you can catch your breath when we’re inside.”
Sheridan staggered alongside Cole. The world behind them was on fire. In less than a minute, the gunships had swept away any opposition in their sights. The sound of the ships’ miniguns firing depleted uranium rounds sounded like a buzz saw cutting through the air. A mercenary who tried to bring down one of the gunships with a shoulder-launched missile was turned into crimson mist when he was struck by a burst of automatic gunfire.
Cole kicked open the front doors and hauled Sheridan inside. “Are you okay?”
Sheridan nodded. “Yeah, just speak to me in my right ear. I can’t hear a thing in my left.”
The building shook as a missile struck the top floor, obliterating it. Dust and paint rained down from the roof.
“Come on, let’s join the others in the tunnels; it’ll be a lot safer down there than up here.”
They ran for the stairs and took them two at a time as they rushed below ground. When they arrived at the floor where the prisoners were located, they slowed down to make sure that they weren’t going to accidentally bump into anyone lurking in the shadows.
Cole brought up his pistol and stepped into the long, dark corridor. He looked both ways before indicating with his head that it was safe.
“Let’s check on the prisoners,” said Sheridan.
Together they jogged down the corridor until they came to the cell that had held the girls. Cole pulled open the cell door. Everyone inside the dark room looked tense and scared. “It’s okay, all that racket you hear is just our friends flattening Abbas’ goons before coming to get us.”
No one said a word.
A puzzled look crept across Cole’s face.
“Move,” said a threatening voice. Like the Red Sea, the people in the cell parted. Sheridan swore when he saw Abbas and one of his henchmen standing there with pistols pointed at the heads of a couple of terrified young women.
“Drop your weapons and step back,” ordered Abbas.
Sheridan and Cole hesitated for a couple of seconds until Abbas twisted the barrel of his pistol on the side of his hostage’s head. They set their weapons at their feet and moved away from the cell entrance.
Abbas, the mercenary, and their hostages stepped out of the cell. He brought his pistol around and aimed it at Sheridan’s head. “If you think this means the end of my operation, you and your precious fleet have seriously misjudged me. I have a dozen places spread throughout this sector where I can begin again.”
Sheridan stared down the barrel of the automatic pistol. His heart was jackhammering in his chest. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to let Abbas see him flinch. “You’re never going to make it off this planet alive and you know it. Any ship attempting to flee will be stopped or blasted from the sky. Give yourself up.”
Abbas chuckled. “Not likely, Captain.” Before anyone could react, he pointed his weapon at Cole’s chest and pulled the trigger. The sound of the pistol firing echoed down the long corridor.
“No,” screamed Sheridan. In desperation, he turned and reached for his friend only to be grabbed from behind by Abbas’ mercenary. Sheridan watched in horror as Cole’s body crumpled to the floor. Cole writhed in agony for a couple of seconds before exhaling and lying deathly still.
“You’re coming with us,” said Abbas. “I think the military would pay handsomely for the safe return of the son of an admiral.”
With hate burning in his eyes, Sheridan spun about and glared at Abbas. “That was a really dumb move, Abbas. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make you pay for that.”
“I don’t think so. Now, march!”
Sheridan did not move. He stood there staring at Abbas.
Abbas saw the defiance in his opponent’s eyes, swung his pistol over, and shot one of the prisoners still inside the cell right between the eyes. “Start walking or I’ll kill these two girls right in front of your eyes.”
“Okay, you win,” Sheridan said, turning about.
A minute later, they came out near the execution pit. Sheridan could hear the bears moving about, startled by all the noise coming from above.
“Head for that elevator,” said Abbas, pointing over at the far wall. “It’ll take us to my private shuttle craft.”
Sheridan moved as slowly as he could. “Think about it, Abbas, you’re not going to make it. Surrender is your only option.”
“Captain, your people will never see me. My ship has the latest in stealth technology built into it. I’ll be past their pathetic blockade and on my way to freedom long before anyone notices me missing.”
Sheridan gritted his teeth. If anyone
had access to the best in stolen military technology, it would be Abbas. He had to stop him before he got to his ship and vanished. When he was less than a couple of meters from the elevator, he remembered that he still had a ceramic knife hidden in his jacket. He slowed down and stepped to one side to allow Abbas’ thug to press the button for the elevator. The moment the mercenary’s arm was extended, Sheridan whipped out his blade and jammed it as hard as he could into the man’s hand.
The mercenary screamed in pain and pulled his hand back.
In a flash, Sheridan smashed his right hand into the injured man’s head, knocking him senseless. The man’s pistol fell to the ground. Before Abbas could get a clear shot, Sheridan grabbed the mercenary by the neck and spun his body around, using it as a shield.
The two girls with them saw what was about to happen, screamed in panic, and pulled themselves free from Abbas’ grip. He snarled at them but let them go; he wanted to kill Sheridan more than he wanted the girls. He could always get more girls. He did not care that one of his men was in the way. Without hesitating, Abbas opened fire.
Sheridan felt each bullet as they struck the guard’s body. Luckily the man was wearing some form of light body armor under his jacket or the rounds would have passed through and struck Sheridan as well. For what seemed like an eternity, Abbas fired his pistol until the slide remained back—he was out of rounds.
The odds were now even. Sheridan tossed the dead mercenary’s body to one side and yelled at the top of his lungs before charging straight at Abbas. He struck the man hard in his stomach, bowling him over. Both men tumbled to the marble floor. Sheridan was the first to recover. He jumped up to his feet and looked around for a weapon. He spotted the dead guard’s pistol lying by the elevator and dove for it.
Abbas may have been a portly looking man, but he was fit and fast on his feet. He saw the weapon at the same time and rushed to grab it as well.
Both men collided into one another and slid across the smooth marble floor. Sheridan rolled over and swung his right elbow at Abbas’ face. He heard a crunch as the cartilage in his opponent’s nose shattered. Blood ran like a river down Abbas’ face. If Sheridan thought that was the end of it, he was sorely mistaken. Abbas wiped the blood to one side, got up on his knees, and pulled a curved blade from behind his back.
Trident Fury (The Kurgan War Book 3) Page 3