“How many are trapped beneath?” Exo calls out.
There’s no answer.
“Dig around the door,” Wraith commands, pointing at the crushed stone along the edges of the door.
Debris is pulled away, legionnaires following orders they didn’t need to hear issued. We want whoever is under there out—alive. Chunks of solid stone are unearthed and sent tumbling down the pile, when suddenly the heap we’re standing on shifts. We drop an inch, losing our balance. There’s a muffled scream from behind the door.
“Hold up!” Exo shouts. “Stop the digging! We can’t let it crush ’em.”
“Let’s think this through, guys,” I say.
My comm beeps, indicating a secure channel message. “Go for Doomsday-1.”
“Lieutenant, it’s Twenties.” His voice is subdued, like he’s purposefully keeping it down, speaking just above a whisper. “Y’all need to roll out. There’s a shit storm brewing.”
“Hang tight.” I clench my jaw and motion for Wraith. “Captain Ford, I’ve got the recon team on comm. He says there’s trouble.”
“Patch me in. What’s his call sign?”
I key Wraith in. “Doomsday-4.”
Wraith nods. “Doomsday-4, this is Vic-1. Report.”
“Copy, Vic-1. We followed the koobs’ trucks out through the plains. Found a good spot here on a cliff ledge. They’ve met up with another force. Big one.”
That doesn’t sound good at all.
“What are they doing?” Wraith asks.
“Nothing right now. The chieftain, the one who rose with Captain Devers, is talking with what looks to me like another chieftain. But, sir, this looks like a war party if I ever saw one. Every koob out there is armed to the air sac. It doesn’t take an intelligence officer to figure out that they’re talking about heading back to the valley.”
I share a look with Wraith and know we’re both thinking the same thing. The Moona koobs set this up. They took advantage of Devers’s succeed-at-any-cost attitude and got us to stand by while they destroyed a friendly village. If it weren’t for Wraith’s refusal to send the sleds down, I have no doubt they would have dropped bombs right on our heads. This must be the backup plan: get a force large enough to try and overpower us in an open fight.
“We need to get out of here and back to Camp Forge,” I tell Wraith.
He nods his approval.
“Twenties, hustle back here. Leave a peeper at your position to feed the holo into your HUD. We’re gonna want to know when they roll out.”
“Copy. You sure you don’t want me to take a shot while I’ve got one? We’ve got some distance, but I know I can get a kill shot on at least one of the chieftains.”
I look to Wraith. He shakes his head.
“Negative,” I say. “We need legionnaires more than dead chieftains right now, and I’m not convinced you won’t get yourself killed if you take that shot. Get back to the sleds. We won’t roll out without you.”
“Copy. Doomsday-4 out. See you soon.”
The captain and I walk toward the legionnaires still examining the buried door. Wraith points a finger at Rook, then hitches his thumb toward Andien. “Get her to the sleds. We’re going to do everything we can to dig out whoever’s underneath in the time we have left, but understand that it’s short.”
“C’mon,” Rook says, taking the scientist by her arm.
She struggles, but not much, pulling away from being manhandled more than out of a desire to stay.
“We need to get you to our sleds,” Rook explains, holding out his hand in a much more gentlemanly approach. “There isn’t a lot of time.”
She looks around pensively, her eyes at chest height with the legionnaires around her. She nods, then looks to her grieving colleague. “What about Ontash?”
I step in and speak quietly, though the way he’s moaning, I doubt he’s aware of anything beyond his own pain. “If we try to pull him away now, he’s only going to scream and fight. We need to focus on digging the survivors out before we run out of time. We’ll carry him off when we’re ready to go, okay?”
This seems to satisfy Andien. She walks with Rook and another leej toward the cliffs.
“Have Doc Quigs check her out when you get up top,” I call after them. To the rest of the legionnaires I say, “Let’s figure out a way to rescue these survivors.”
“How about cutting through the wood?” Exo suggests.
I shake my head. “Cutting torch will cook whoever’s on the other side. Something else.”
Masters has his koob sword in hand. “Let’s do it the old-fashioned way: chip and whittle away the wood until we can punch through.”
I nod. The other leejes pull out their vibro-knives and begin the delicate task of carving up the heavy door.
“Vic-1 to Silver-1.” Wraith is back on the comm. “I need all sleds ready for evacuation. No big hurry, I’m talking parsecs.”
“Copy, Vic-1,” comes the command sled’s reply.
Parsecs. Not a measurement of time. Legionnaires use the term to mean double-quick. Wraith is subtly telling the drivers to prepare to leave now without coming right out and saying it. This is why we don’t share our comms with anyone. We’ve got to assume all L-comm and open transmissions are being listened in on.
“What’s this about?” Devers asks. “Why are we leaving?”
“Maintain comm discipline,” Wraith says. “We’re done down here, so I just don’t want to waste time. Village is clear.”
“That means combat operations are over,” answers Devers. “I assume command in that case. We’re not going anywhere. We need to stay put and hope that Chieftain Kreggak finds it in his character to come back to us, even though we insulted him. Silver Team, stand down.”
“Do not stand down,” countermanded Wraith. “Get those sleds ready to move like your life depends on it.”
I don’t know how much more obvious things need to be for Devers to catch on.
My comm beeps again, the same secure channel as before. “Go ahead, Twenties.”
“Lieutenant!” Twenties in gasping into the comm, and it’s clear he and his partner are in a full run. “Peeper shows the koobs moving out. Something made them scramble real quick. You need to get the sleds out of there!”
“Copy. Get back as quick as possible.” I turn to the legionnaires hacking at the thick door. “Time to go! Koobs are inbound.” I point to the grieving scientist. “Grab him and let’s go.”
“We can’t leave whoever’s under here!” Exo says. He begins carving out the wood at a near reckless pace, thick splinters flying everywhere. Masters is working even more frantically, bringing his koob sword down with such force that I’m worried he’ll break through and kill the survivors.
But Exo is right. We can’t leave whoever’s under this pile to suffocate. I remember the tomahawk on my belt, and I use it to help in cutting away. We’re like mad men, savagely attacking the door. “Everyone else get to the sleds! We’ll break through and catch up.”
Wraith stands by for a moment, then repeats my order. “Okay, legionnaires. Let’s go.”
I hear the bearded man struggle and shout as he’s pulled away from his dead wife. It’s only the three of us at the excavation site now: Masters, Exo and me. My arms are so tired that I wonder if I’m doing anything beyond raising my tomahawk in the air and letting gravity bring the blade down into the wood.
We haven’t heard any sounds since the earlier cry for help. I’m worried something has collapsed inside.
Finally, a small hole appears.
“We’re through!” I shout.
Masters widens the hole with his sword, then peers inside. “Republican Legion!” he calls. “Where are you?” He pauses, then pops his head back up. “I heard a moan, but I can’t see anything.” He turns on his ultrabeam and shines it into the hole. “Wait! I see movement.”
We cut and pry apart pieces of the wood door until we’ve got a hole big enough to pull someone through.
&
nbsp; I can now see three partially buried bodies. I reach down and grab an arm. We pull out the corpse of a Kublaren.
“Too late for her,” Exo observes.
We set the dead alien aside and go back into the breach. I grab another arm and follow it to the armpit. It’s a woman. “Help me pull her out.”
Masters squats down, and together we pull another Republic scientist out of the narrow opening. She’s disoriented, her face and hair thick with gray dust.
“Can you walk?” I ask, snapping my fingers to get her attention.
“Help us…” The woman’s voice is weak and fragile. It’s the same voice that cried out earlier. She seems almost completely out of it. She stands, then cries out in pain, collapsing into Masters’s arms.
Wraith’s voice comes over the comm. “Lieutenant, get your men out of that valley. Advanced sled says the koobs will be here in minutes.”
“There’s still one more down there,” Exo says, looking from the mound of debris to the sleds on top of the hill.
“Help Masters get her to the sleds,” I say. “I’ll grab the other one, and if they’re alive, I’ll carry them.”
My men hesitate.
“Go!”
They take off.
The rocks slip around us, and the debris pile shifts. I look back in the opening and can no longer see the third person. I poke my head and shoulders through the door into the cavity. I move brick and stone frantically until my hand wraps around a slender wrist. My first thought is that this is another koob. But when I squeeze the hand, five small fingers wrap around my glove.
Gripping the hand, I start to pull, but it doesn’t budge, and a scream of pain makes my ears ring. It’s not the scream of a man or a woman—more like a girl.
I crawl in further, and feel the mound of debris tremble from my shifting weight. Groping in the dark, I remember my ultrabeam and switch it on. I see the bloodied face of a child, maybe twelve years old. Perhaps she’s some scientist’s daughter.
“Lieutenant Chhun.” Wraith’s voice is still calm, but I know that he wants me on the sleds. “It’s time to leave. Right now.”
“Almost got her, Captain.”
I begin to dig away the stones and lumber around her. She’s buried up past her waist. The pile rumbles some more.
I grab her arms and pull. She moves, but not without more agonized screams. I keep pulling, feeling her come loose from the death trap that is this destroyed building. She screams the entire time. But at last she’s through the door and I’m cradling her in my arms.
I run down the rubble pile, stopping only to grab my blaster rifle and sling it around my shoulder. The girl doesn’t seem to weigh anything. But it’s obvious that she’s in tremendous pain. She’s crying and shouting for pain with every jarring step I take.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to soothe her as we sprint toward the sled pickup zone. She cries out, and I repeat the words like a mantra. Like somehow just saying it will make it true. “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I hold her close, whispering the words in her ear. Her screams have become quiet moans. I steal a glance at her face. She’s pale, and doesn’t seem to have the strength to do anything but remain cradled in my arms. For the first time I see that where her leg ought to be is a twisted stump of flesh with a bone sticking clear. My armor is painted red with her blood.
“It’s okay,” I lie. “You’ll be okay.”
I reach the line dangling from a sled waiting for me at the top of the valley’s walls. I clip it to my belt and grab hold of it with one arm, holding the girl with the other. She doesn’t make any more noises as the sled pulls us up out of the valley.
Up top, I look for Doc Quigs. He’s just finished closing up a med-sled. “One more!” I shout. “I’ve got one more.”
Quigs runs over to me. He’s staring at the girl. Staring at my armor. Gently he removes the girl from my arms. “She’s gone, Lieutenant.”
I stand there, covered in this innocent girl’s blood. Wondering how it came to be that her life came to an end in my arms on some God-forsaken planet at galaxy’s edge.
Doc lays the girl on the ground, then puts a hand on my shoulder. “You did what you could. We need to go.”
“Lieutenant!” Exo calls to me from the open ramp of a nearby sled. “Let’s go, man! We gotta go!”
I climb on board and close the ramp behind me.
16
My sled is filled almost to capacity. Every seat is taken, and a basic is manning the turret—the same kid we rode with before the ambush. Most of my squad is inside. Exo and Rook are by the back ramp and Masters is next to the partition, sitting next to Andien. The scientist is staring at me—no, not me. She’s staring at the still-wet blood staining my armor.
“Did Twenties and Maldorn make it back to the sleds?” I ask.
“Don’t know,” Rook replies. “Hope so.”
“Doomsday-1 to Doomsday-4, what’s your status?” I use the same secure channel Twenties called me on, but get no reply.
Exo shifts in his seat. “Drivers relayed a message that no one is allowed to use the L-comm. So unless he’s still on the private channel… I mean, if he’s running, he ain’t gonna have time to key in another frequency.”
I nod. We haven’t left the site yet, and I don’t want to leave any leejes behind. I hail Wraith on our private channel. “Captain Ford, have Doomsday-4 and Doomsday-8 returned from overwatch?”
“Negative,” Wraith replies.
“Sir, request permission to remain on site until their arrival.” I look at my legionnaires in the sled. They’re ready to get out and walk home if that’s what it takes to keep from leaving a buddy behind.
“Granted. I already ordered the bulk of the force to return to Camp Forge. Our two sleds will stay back and wait for overwatch as long as possible.” The partition screen in our sled lights up with a holofeed from a deployed TT-16 observation bot. “We’re tracking their progress now. It looks like it’ll be close.”
Twenties and Maldorn are running all-out across a rocky terrain littered with scrub. A division of koob trucks is driving hard after them, though I don’t think they actually see the legionnaires—no way the koobs wouldn’t shoot if they thought someone was out in front of them. The runners disappear into a small forest with a deep, almost blue canopy of leaves.
The bot approximates the distance to the sled. They should be here in a few minutes. The koob force will be right on top of them, though.
We all wait, eyes fixed on the aerial view of the forest. They should be clear by now. The holocam hovers at the break in the trees where the legionnaires are expected to emerge.
“Why aren’t they coming out?” Exo asks.
“Rough terrain, injury—maybe a broken ankle…” Rook says.
Exo gives him a look.
“What? You asked!”
The readouts on the screen now give the Kublaren vehicles an earlier ETA than our legionnaires. The first trucks have entered the forest, which apparently is not as dense as it looks from above. I chew on my lip and stare at the holoscreen, trying to get Twenties and Maldorn out of that forest by the force of my will.
“One more minute and we’ve gotta go,” Wraith announces over my comm.
Gritting my teeth, I stare at the holoscreen.
Two gray armored legionnaires bust out of the undergrowth and run from the tree line. “There they are!”
“They’ll never make it,” Rook says, swapping out a charge pack on his N-4 all the same. “Those trucks are gonna be on top of them in no time.”
As more vehicles enter the forest under the gaze of the TT-16 bot, a fiery light erupts in the midst of the trees accompanied by a tremendous boom. A cloud of black smoke mushrooms from the woods.
So that’s what was taking Twenties and Maldorn so long.
“Drop doors!” Wraith orders.
We lower our ramps to see Twenties and Maldorn running all-out toward us, fire and flames behind them. We’re abou
t a half kilometer from the trees. Legionnaires take up firing positions from inside the sled, waiting for the trucks.
One of the white vehicles rolls out from among the trees, its wheels burning and its occupants dead or missing. It’s rolling forward on sheer momentum. The second truck to come through is a different story. The white vehicle bounces across the terrain, a koob gunner struggling to keep his place in the bed behind a heavy machine gun.
“Contact!” calls out our gunner.
Dat-dat-dat-dat!
Both sleds send rapid fire over the incoming legionnaires’ heads and into the koob truck. The vehicle swerves in an attempt to avoid being hit, sending the gunner in the truck bed tumbling over the side. Our gunners lead the target perfectly, though, riddling it with explosive bolts that send it up in flames.
“Two more coming through!”
The sleds’ twin guns do their work as Twenties and Maldorn get within a hundred meters.
“Move your butts!” I shout, motioning for them to keep digging and get on the sleds.
“More trucks!”
Five more enemy vehicles crash out of the tree line, shearing saplings at the edge of the blue woods. The gunners each focus on a vehicle, disabling their targets with ease. The remaining three bear down on our fleeing legionnaires. Koob gunners spray inaccurate fire at the soldiers, sending clods of dirt kicking up around them.
“Let’s get some suppressing fire and help our gunners out!” I call into the comm.
We form something of a phalanx at the back of our sleds, a tight pack of leejes firing at the windshields of the oncoming trucks. The drivers lose their nerve and veer away, probably looking to avoid fire and loop back in pursuit once they gain on the runners. More trucks emerge from the woods, and the sense that we’re about to fight every warrior from Moona Village hits me like a repulsor thrust.
Twenties and Maldorn are close, almost to the waiting sleds, when a koob bullet slams into its target. A loud crack rises above the din, and I see an armored sleeve explode and fly into the air as the legionnaire hits the ground hard.
“They got Maldorn!” Masters shouts.
Unaware, Twenties keeps running, leaving his fallen comrade on the field. Wraith leaps from his sled and sprints toward the fallen legionnaire. Seeing this, Twenties stops and turns to follow the captain. They pick up Maldorn and get beneath his arms, helping him run toward the waiting sled.
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