“Looks like they’ve found us,” said Lee, clenching his rifle tight in his hands.
“Yeah, looks that way,” replied Sheridan. “Have everyone take cover. Pass the word that no one fires until I do, then it’s one shot and one shot only per Kurgan. Tell them to aim for the officers and the NCOs first. If they don’t know how to tell one from another, tell them to kill anyone who is trying to lead the others forward.”
“Rodger, sir. Shoot the officers, it’s a non-com’s wet dream.”
Tarina took hold of Sheridan’s right arm. “What do you think our chances are?”
He pulled her in close and looked into her eyes. “I don’t know. They’re coming here with one thought on their minds, to butcher you and your friends. I say we give them a warm welcome.”
Tarina nodded. “Yes, let’s.”
Together they stepped back and got down behind some large rocks on the lip of the depression. Already they could hear the sound of boots scraping on the rocks as the Kurgans began to climb up the side of the hill.
Sheridan rested his rifle on the ground and looked through the weapon’s thermal sight, picking a spot he was sure the Kurgans would appear. He was surprised that he was as calm as he was. He had expected to feel scared, but his many months of combat had taught him that whatever happened next was out of his hands. All he could do now was his job and trust in his comrades to do the same.
Less than a minute passed before the first wave of Kurgans hauled themselves up onto the top of the rocky hill. Sheridan spotted a Kurgan with a flag in his arms yelling at the soldiers behind him to follow. Although dark, Sheridan knew that the flag would be crimson-colored for the Kurgan religion. He laid his weapon’s sight on the officer’s forehead before gently taking up the pressure on his rifle’s trigger. With a sound like that of a whip cracking, the bullet shot forth and struck the Kurgan right between the eyes. He keeled over, dropping the flag. Another soldier ran to pick it up. Sheridan took aim and killed him as well.
Beside him, Tarina and Lee brought down several more Kurgans as they came into view. Like a dam bursting, the Kurgans surged forward like a living wave. With their swords held high above their heads and with hate in their hearts, the Kurgans charged straight at the people taking refuge in the crater. One or two fell wounded, but the majority died before they could make it more than ten meters from the side of the hill. In under a minute, the first attack petered out and stopped. A Kurgan hissed defiantly at Sheridan and the other defenders before helping one of the severely wounded soldiers. A macabre row of dead Kurgans marked the farthest limit of their advance.
A cheer burst from the people huddled in the darkened crater.
Sheridan stood up. “Quieten down. No cheering. That was only a probe. They’ll be back and from more than one direction next time.” He turned and looked over at Lee. “Sergeant, check the bodies to see if any of them was carrying something other than a sword.”
Lee nodded and dashed from the depression, quickly searching the remains.
“How long before they come back?” Tarina asked.
“If we’re lucky, ten minutes, perhaps.”
“And if we’re unlucky?”
“Five or less.”
She leaned over and kissed Sheridan on the cheek. “Well. Let’s hope for today that you’re lucky.”
He smiled back at her.
Tarina shook her head. “Not that kind of lucky, mister.”
On the outskirts of the mining camp, Viper Six lowered his thermal imaging binoculars and glanced down at his watch. They had been in position for close to two hours and had yet to see a single Kurgan. The fighting behind him had died down a while back, now the only sound was coming from the burning wreckage of the old mining complex. A twenty-year veteran, Viper Six’s real name was Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Okiro. He was a bull of a man with broad shoulders and a muscle-bound body.
“I guess we’re not going to see any action tonight, sir,” said Sergeant Day, Okiro’s radio operator.
“No. I suppose not.”
“That’s a real shame. I was really hoping to get the chance to kick some Kurgan arse.”
Okiro chuckled at his youthful sergeant’s remark.
All of a sudden, Day sat straight up in his chair and looked over at Okiro. “Sir, the Saratoga says that they have just detected a large formation of ships heading this way.”
Okiro glanced over and saw that there was nothing on his vehicle’s scanners. If they were out there, they were flying nap of the earth. He stuck his head outside and helplessly watched as one by one, the drones flying in support of his team were blown from the sky.
“What the hell is going on?” remarked Okiro, unable to discern what had brought down his UAVs.
The sound of additional incoming missiles turned his blood cold. Only the warheads, not the attack ships, racing at supersonic speed at his position showed up on Day’s monitor. Okiro and his sergeant died a second later when his command vehicle was blasted into thousands of pieces by a Kurgan missile. All along his defensive line, anything with a power source was hit. In less than three seconds, twenty vehicles and their crews were gone. Orange and red flames licked the night sky. Only the Marines who had dug in with their heavy weapons had survived the attack.
“Calm down, son, and tell me again what just happened,” said Colonel White into a handset.
“Sir, we are under attack. Viper Six is dead and over half of the combat team has been destroyed,” replied a flustered Lieutenant on the burning ridgeline.
“Hang on, I’m on my way to your position.” White turned and jogged out of the mine. He clenched his jaw when he saw the burning hulks of what had once been a robust fighting force illuminating the horizon. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three Marines he didn’t recognize carrying radios on their backs running as fast as they could toward the wrecked combat team.
“Just a minute, who are you people?” called out White.
A woman turned to face the colonel. “Sir, my name is First Lieutenant Toscano; my men and I were part of the recce team who were sent ahead to scout out the mine. We saw what just happened and are going to see if we can help.”
“What’s your MOS Toscano?”
“I’m a fire effects officer, sir.”
“Okay then, get up on the ridge, make contact with the task force, and start raining down all the ordnance you can into the desert. I got a feeling that a storm is coming our way.”
“Yes, sir.” Toscano took off running with Sergeant Urban and Private Snow by her side.
White heard an odd humming noise and turned to look up at the star-filled sky just as a dark triangular shape, followed closely by another, flew right over the top of the mine. His stomach clenched in a knot when he realized that they had to be Kurgan attack ships of some kind. He didn’t recognize them but knew that they meant to do his people harm.
His mind barely had time to process what was going on when the two Kurgan ships let loose a volley of missiles into the landing craft sitting defenseless a kilometer away from the mine. The sound of the ships exploding rocked the night. White swore as the large transports were destroyed by the nearly invisible assailants. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed. For the first time since he had stepped foot on Klatt, White began to face the possibility of failure. As it wasn’t in his or the Corps ethos to give in without a fight, he quickly formed a plan in his mind.
“Sergeant Bowen, the handset, if you please.” White wasn’t finished—not by a long shot.
Admiral Sheridan listened to the incoming reports and tried to imagine himself on the surface of the planet fighting for his life. He shuddered at the thought of the loss of life that had just occurred among the Marines and the transport flight crews. He willed himself to block out such thoughts until they could be dealt with when the engagement was behind them.
“Sir, thank God you didn’t send the rest of the landing craft down to the surface or they’d be gone too,” said Killam.
“Captain, does fleet intel have anything on these new Kurgan attack craft?”
Killam shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Hell of a way to find out.”
“Aye, sir.”
Roy joined the conversation. “Admiral, Colonel White wants us to bring as much fire as we can onto the ground in front of Viper Six’s old location. He believes that a ground assault by overwhelming Kurgan forces is just minutes away.”
Admiral Sheridan said, “Have the missile cruiser Ford support the call for fire with everything she’s got, and then tell the Saratoga to launch two squadrons ASAP to support the beleaguered Marines.”
“Aye, sir,” responded Roy. She moved back to her duty station, picked up her tablet, and typed out the orders.
Killam lowered his voice. “Sir, we’ve now lost four of our twelve landing craft. We needed nine to evacuate everyone off the planet.”
“I know. I want you to order the support ship, Arctic, to jettison everything that she does not need from her cargo holds. She’s going to be turned into our last transport. We can cross load some of the first people brought up from the planet and make this work.”
Killam nodded. “Aye, that might just do the trick.”
“It had better as we’re rapidly running out of options to make this work.”
“I’ll speak with the captain of the Arctic myself and tell him precisely what you want him to do.”
Admiral Sheridan glanced over at the timer counting down to zero. They had just over two hours to go before any Kurgan fighting ships could arrive. He was also cognizant of the fact that they had yet to find, let alone move, a single POW up from the planet. He took a deep breath to clear his mind, placed his hands behind his back, and resumed his pacing.
Chapter 39
With a loud roar from one hundred throats, the second attack began. As Sheridan had anticipated, the Kurgans had maneuvered around and came at them from two different directions this time. Luckily, the paths they had to use to reach the top of the hill were narrow, canalizing the attackers into coming at them in twos and threes at a time. While Sheridan led the fight from his end of the crater, Sergeant Lee did the same at the other. The Kurgans never flinched nor wavered. Regardless of their losses, they kept on coming. Before long, their bodies covered the ground around the depression, yet they would not give in. Driven by a bloodlust, the Kurgans were hell-bent on killing their enemy so they could honor their ancestors by advancing into the ranks of the Old Guard.
With a quick glance down, Sheridan saw that his rifle had only forty rounds left in its magazine. When they were gone, he would be out of ammo. He suspected that the others around him had even less ammunition remaining as they tended to fire more shots than necessary to bring down an enemy soldier. He watched as Tarina got up on one knee, took aim, and brought down a Kurgan NCO, who had just taken possession of their battle flag from a fallen comrade.
From somewhere in the night, a horn blared. The Kurgans stopped their advance and, as if nothing had happened, turned about and walked away from the carnage.
“Hold your fire, they’re retiring,” called out Sheridan. The defenders guns fell silent. The unsettling moans of several wounded Kurgans unable to crawl back for medical aid filled the air.
“Michael, I’ve only got twelve rounds left,” said Tarina.
“Check with the others and see how many they have left as well.”
Sheridan stood up and glanced over at the horizon and saw the first faint rays of the approaching dawn. He checked on the rest of his people, stressing to each person with a weapon to conserve what remained of their ammunition.
Tarina and Lee joined him. “Sir, on average we’re down to fifteen rounds per rifle,” explained Lee. “The few pistols we have are still fully loaded, but they’re only good close in. I’ve handed around as many swords as I could find. But I doubt we’d last more than a couple of minutes against the Kurgs if all we had left to defend ourselves with were those weapons.”
Sheridan nodded. Their future prospects were indeed bleak. There were close to eighty people taking cover in the crater. Some of them had been injured during the fight on the train and would be unable to fight back should the Kurgans break through their slender perimeter. He was desperate to think of a solution when he recalled a lesson from one of his history classes.
“Sergeant Lee, get everyone on their feet. I want you to form a square.”
“A square, sir?”
“Yes. Make it tight and have a person with a sword standing next to a person with a gun. Ensure that our wounded are moved to the middle of the formation.”
Lee stared back at Sheridan as if he had lost his mind.
“Hurry, Sergeant, we don’t have long until they come back.”
It didn’t take Lee very long to push everyone into something that resembled a square formation. Sheridan walked over and looked into the worried faces of the men and women who were at a loss to understand what they were doing.
“People, we’re almost out of ammo. We need to make every round count if we are to survive until help arrives. I know this next order may seem counterintuitive to those of you with a sword, but I don’t want you to defend yourselves, you are to protect the person with the gun to your right. If the Kurgans get close enough to use their swords, they will lift their sword arm above their heads to deliver the killing blow. That is when they will be vulnerable. Their segmented armor is weak under the armpit. Wait until his arm is fully raised and then jam yours home.”
The sound of a horn echoed over the top of the hill.
Sheridan took his place in the square and called out. “Here they come. Show them no mercy, as they will not show you any. If you must, sell your life dearly.”
In the gray light of dawn, the crimson banner was raised. A lone officer stood up on the top of the hill and let out a deep cry. His call was answered by hundreds more eager to get to grips with their foe. Dozens of soldiers scrambled up onto the top of the hill and rushed to form up under their officers.
Sheridan could see that they had brought up two fresh companies of soldiers from the bottom of the hill. He doubted that the Kurgans had any warriors left in reserve. This was it. All or nothing.
The Kurgan officer moved in front of his soldiers and began to beat his sword on his chest. Within seconds, two hundred Kurgans joined in.
Lee raised his rifle. “Let me take down that son of a bitch.”
“Steady on,” warned Sheridan. “I want them to get a lot closer before we open up. We can’t afford to miss.”
The Kurgan colonel grabbed hold of his unit’s flag, raised it high in the air, and yelled the order to attack. The attackers broke ranks and ran forward. Each warrior wanted to be the first to thrust his sword into an enemy’s stomach.
The sound of two hundred pairs of feet running across the rocky ground was like listening to an avalanche of rocks hurtling down the side of a mountain.
“Wait for it,” cried out Sheridan. He could feel the fear and tension gripping the people around him. He waited until the first Kurgan was less than fifty paces from the square when he yelled out, “Fire!”
At that range, they couldn’t miss. The first rank of Kurgans fell to the ground. Those behind them jumped over the fallen only to be hit themselves. Bodies of the dead and dying soon covered the ground.
Sheridan switched targets and pulled back on the trigger. He didn’t wait to see if the soldier he had just shot was down; he was too busy selecting his next victim. Over the din of battle, Sheridan heard the guns near him begin to fall silent. He glanced over the top of his rifle and saw that the Kurgans had stopped rushing his end of the square. Like a river looking for the path of least resistance, they had veered off to the backside of the formation where the fire had slackened. He turned, grabbed a man from behind him, and handed the man his rifle. Sheridan drew his pistol and pushed his way through the square until he stood alongside Sergeant Lee.
The enemy was almost on them. Hate and anger fil
led their golden eyes.
“Remember what I said,” hollered Sheridan. “Kill the warrior to your right.” He brought up his pistol and shot the closest Kurgan to him. The soldier spun about and dropped to the ground with a gaping wound in his neck.
A second later, the Kurgans smashed headlong into the defenders. The noise was like a wave hitting the rocks during a storm. Those with ammunition left fired at point-blank range into the swarm of Kurgans. Some people did as Sheridan had ordered and struck the enemy soldier to their right. Others panicked and tried to fight the warrior facing them only to die, cut down by the fitter and more experienced Kurgan soldiers.
Sheridan felt the square buckle and begin to step backward. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw a Kurgan slice a man’s skull open. He shot the Kurgan before he could kill anyone else.
Sergeant Lee dropped his empty weapon and picked up a discarded sword and swung at a Kurgan who had pushed his dying comrade aside and brought up his arm to strike Sheridan. The blade sunk home in the soldier’s lightly protected underarm. Mortally wounded, the Kurgan hissed as he fell to its knees before toppling over.
Before long, numbers began to tell. More and more people fell under the relentless hacking and slashing of the Kurgan swords. It was as Sheridan feared, the fitter and stronger Kurgans were hacking down everything in their path. The formation started to come apart as more defenders died. Sheridan stepped back, nearly tripping over the dead body of one of his comrades, trying to keep in line with Lee. Just when it seemed that the Kurgans had won the day, Tarina burst through the line along with two other people armed with rifles. She fired her weapon at the nearest officer before turning her attention to any Kurgan with a bloodied blade. The warriors began to hesitate in the face of such a deadly fusillade. Their courage seemed to evaporate in seconds.
Sheridan saw the growing look of confusion on the Kurgans’ faces. He pointed at the Kurgans and yelled, “They won’t hold!”
Trident Fury (The Kurgan War Book 3) Page 21