Rear Echelon

by Darryl S Ellrott

  Rear Echelon

  by

  Darryl S. Ellrott and Brent Mitchell Wood

  Copyright 2011 by Darryl S. Ellrott and Brent Mitchell Wood

  Published by Big Rock Publishing

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  Big Rock Publishing and the company logo are trademarks.

  Big Rock Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 4315

  Alpharetta, Georgia 30023

  ISBN-13: 978-1-61288-029-7

  ISBN-10: 1-61288-029-0

  To Dilmus,

  For hauling me up that mountain one more time.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Longest Night

  About the Authors

  About Big Rock Publishing

  Chapter 1

  When the SAS Halsey came out of hyperspace over Askura and found herself staring down the barrels of an automated orbital defense platform, everyone knew it meant big trouble. In the thirty seconds it took for the shield generators to come online, the automated platform put six missiles into her underbelly. The ship was doomed, but the men below didn’t know it yet.

  Travis Buckley and his teammates from Bandit Company were busy combat loading the assault shuttle when the missiles blew out the bottom of the massive troop carrier. Bandit Company had been assigned mission support for the Alpha Elite Squadron sent to rescue a kidnapped scientist from a stronghold located God-knew-where in the trackless jungles below. Travis, his friend Ernie “Struts” McCaskey, and Private Numbnuts were busy making sure Alpha Elite had what every mission required: beans, bullets, and band-aids.

  In fact, it was Private Numbnuts who almost didn’t make it aboard when disaster struck. He was bucking four medical supply cases onboard with a hand truck at the time and getting chewed on by Sergeant Hardesty, who was supervising the load-in.

  “Numbnuts, I didn’t know they stacked shit that high!” he griped. Numbnuts, who was one man tall and only a half a man wide, was bundling his oversized load aboard with less trouble than it should have taken. Hardesty was in a fouler mood than usual, but when wasn’t he? An Armada Marine lifer, Emil Hardesty was way past mandatory retirement age, and twenty years of brawling and boozing his way across half the galaxy had not made him any more patient with gangly, towheaded farm boys like Private Numbnuts. Rumor had it the lad was more than a few cards short of a full deck.

  Travis and Struts, who had been with Numbnuts since boot, knew there was definitely more to their friend than met the eye. “So, what’s the skinny on this bug hunt?” asked Struts.

  “Well, rumor has it a Machai death squad snatched this guy Dr. Arnac right off his conference table at U.N. Headquarters,” replied Travis.

  “Machai death squad! I thought they weren’t supposed to exist!”

  “They don’t exist,” stated Private Jenna Jones matter-of-factly. “The Machai are just a fairy tale, a name for people no one’s seen in over a thousand years. A bunch of terrorists in black pajamas, I say.” The perky redhead looked down again at her clipboard.

  “Aren’t they supposed to be devil worshippers?” asked Private Darlene “Penny” Peabody. The brunette stopped trying to shift the crates into order and peered over her glasses.

  “I hear Askura’s a tropical paradise, and we’re all going ashore,” said Struts. “Alpha Elite’s gonna liberate the kidnapped scientist, while the fighting men of Bandit Company – “ he threw an arm around Travis’s shoulder, “ – are gonna liberate some native girls from their virginity.”

  Jenna snorted, while Penny blushed.

  “Speaking of the devil, here comes Hardesty,” quipped Travis. Everyone smiled.

  Hardesty spoke to the hulking Marines now trailing him. “Driveway, you and Otto help the Bandits get this gear stowed away, pronto.”

  “Aye aye, Top!” cried the squad leader of Alpha Elite. Derek Driveway had met Travis when he, Struts, and Numbnuts has first arrived onboard the Halsey, and Travis thought Driveway was decent guy for an Alpha Dog. His teammate Otto Spielman, who frightened people and knew it, was not so popular.

  “Yeah! Why are you girls sitting around gossiping when there’s work to be done?” He and Driveway went forward, while Jenna flipped off Otto behind his back.

  Shuttle One’s cargo, one third of the supplies needed for the three-shuttle drop to Askura, was almost complete. The shuttle held enough guns, ammo, food, and medical supplies for about seventy five Marines. Sergeant Hardesty, however, was not the ranking officer aboard the shuttle at the moment. Captain Bainbridge was in the cockpit, making final adjustments to the Officer Level software upgrade for the shuttle’s battle computer. “Buckley!” the sergeant called.

  “Sir!”

  Hardesty tossed Travis a bottle of water. “Take this forward to the Captain.”

  “Sir, aye sir!”

  Travis found the cockpit smaller and more cramped than he had expected. Captain Bainbridge sat tapping intently on his touchpad, which fed wireless instructions to the flight computer. “What is it, private?” he asked without looking up. His deep voice spoke of comfortable command and relaxed confidence.

  “Buckley, sir. Sergeant Hardesty thought you might want this.” He held out the bottle. At that moment, an earthquake seemed to strike the massive docking bay.

  Emil Hardesty knew something was badly wrong when his ears were split by an unseen explosion and he felt the immediate wind of decompression. Hardesty grasped the bulkhead for support and with his right hand hauled Private Numbnuts inside a bare second before the loading doors slammed shut. He knew what was happening, and he knew seconds would count. He raised his voice to a leather-lunged battlefield roar.

  “Hull breach!” he shouted. “Everybody forward! Clear this hold! Move, move, move!” Hardesty barreled up the catwalk hauling Numbnuts behind him and shoving the shocked members of Bandit company before him. The hard shell cargo cases, which lined both walls three deep, were locked in tight. Even before the impromptu crew had reached the passenger cabin, everyone felt the deck tilt beneath their feet as the ship went into an unpowered roll. Last through the hatch, Hardesty slammed the emergency seal as he bellowed for the others to strap in.

  Exterior explosions rocked the shuttle. Crew members were tossed from floor to ceiling like balls in a lottery drawing. Jenna and Struts had been able to make it to their seats; others were not so lucky. They watched helplessly as one man flew head over heels into the bulkhead. As Captain Bainbridge tried to pilot the shuttle away from the disintegrating ship, Hardesty was able to get everyone to their seats.

  In the cockpit, Captain Bainbridge worked furiously get the shuttle under control. “Sit down, Buckley. We’ve got to put some distance between ourselves and the Halsey before it’s too late.” Travis dropped into the co-pilot’s seat and hastily affixed the shoulder straps. “What happened, sir?” Travis’s voice was not so calm.

  “I don’t know. The docking bay disintegrated around us. The ship must have been hit. Can you see anything aft?” Travis peered out the side window, straining for a glimpse behind him.

 
; The Halsey was on fire in space. Though he could not hear the explosions through the vacuum, he could see the momentary flares and glows as combustion ate up the atmosphere inside the ship. The massive battleship listed badly, and Travis could see gaping holes in its underside.

  “Sir, the whole bottom of the ship’s been blown out! What hit us?”

  Bainbridge’s steely face was grim. “Don’t know yet son, but she’s liable to go critical at any moment. If we don’t get away fast, we’ll go up with her.”

  “What the hell is that?” cried Travis as he pointed straight through the forward windshield. The black-on-black shape was hard to see against the background of the stars, but he could just make out the gun turrets which protruded from all sides. As the shuttle rocketed closer, Travis could see the rotation of missile platforms as they locked on.

  Recognition dawned in the captain’s eyes. “Orbital defense platform. It must have fired on us as we came out of hyperspace. Now it’s detected our thrusters. Hang on!”

  Travis could only look on as the robotic platform fired at them. Bainbridge tried to sling the shuttle’s tail around and clear of the oncoming rocket. He punched the intercom. “Brace for impact!” It was the Halsey herself who saved them. A white-hot plasma conduit ejected from the dying battleship intercepted the missile as it closed in for the kill. The rocket tracked onto the debris and detonated. Travis was thrown against the straps as the impact sent the shuttle into a wild tumble.

  By the time Bainbridge got the ship righted again, virtually every readout board in the cockpit was flashing red. The captain flipped on the intercom again. “Hardesty, how are we back there?”

  “One wounded, no dead!” came the familiar voice. “We’ve got integrity in the forward crew compartments and probably the cargo hold, but I’m reading all reds and a partial vacuum in the starboard engine compartments astern! We’ve got no power right now!”

  “You keep ‘em together back there, sergeant. We’re going in.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Bainbridge looked over at Travis as the blue and white of Askura slowly filled the windshield. “We got lucky. The explosion blew out our starboard engine, but we’ve still got some power to port. We’re still too close to the Halsey. When she goes, we go. Down is our only option. I’ve got one chance to hit our window and dead-stick the landing, or we bounce off the atmosphere and never make planet fall.”

  “What do I do?” asked Travis.

  “Pray.”

  “Pray? Pray for what?”

  “Pray that the wings extend. This thing is about to become a falling brick. Without wings, first we’ll tumble, then we’ll burn up. Here goes nothing.” He flipped the switch. Travis breathed an explosive sigh as the light turned green. The retractable delta wings slowly slid into position.

  Bainbridge went to work on his de-orbit burn. Generous application of the forward control jets slowed the craft, which was hurtling along at close to 18,000 miles per hour, enough to drop it out of orbit. As they began to fall, Travis could actually see the pronounced curve of the planetary horizon begin to flatten out. Bainbridge pulled back on the stick slightly, assuming a forty degree “up” angle with the shuttle’s nose. If the angle was too steep, the ship would heat up and disintegrate. If it was too shallow, the wings would create lift. They would skip off the atmosphere and go careening back into orbit.

  “So far, so good, but we’re not out of the woods yet,” Bainbridge told the crew over the intercom. “This next part will be rough. I’ve got to perform a series of banking S-turns as we re-enter the atmosphere to dissipate our speed more. We’re going to generate a lot of heat, and the g-forces will be high. I don’t think Askura has any regulation runways, so get ready to ditch in the water. Captain out.”

  The crippled craft hurtled towards the earth, building a glowing corona around itself as it pushed aside the air. Both cockpit passengers were repeatedly thrown against the restraining straps as turbulence buffeted the shuttle. Travis usually liked roller coasters, but this made his gorge rise. After an interminable amount of time, they dropped below cloud cover. Travis spotted the green of the jungle canopy below them and the azure blue of the waves ahead.

  “Captain,” he said, “that looks like land below us. You said sea!”

  “Don’t want to swim too far, do you?” Travis glimpsed a flash of beach as green jungle turned to blue water. Bainbridge spoke into the intercom again. “Here we go. Impact in 5, 4, 3…”

  The assault shuttle slammed into the waves, bouncing once, twice, then settling in as water washed over the cockpit windshield in a furious spray and cascaded over the wings. Travis could feel the gentle rocking of the tide. “Okay, everybody into the pool!” said the captain.

  Bainbridge came out the cockpit firing orders. “Sergeant, give me a head count.”

  “Eighteen! Four Alphas, fourteen Bandits, sir. One minor concussion, no dead.”

  “Damage?”

  “We’re taking on water from the breach astern. We’ll be underwater in about four minutes.”

  “Everybody up top, deploy the rafts.” Bainbridge punched some buttons on a wall panel. “I’m opening the loading doors before we lose power.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  In a few moments, the survivors of the Halsey were on the roof of the sinking ship and leaping aboard the four self-inflating rescue rafts Hardesty had deployed. As they paddled away, Travis looked back in time to see the shuttle vanish below the waves. It was tropical hot, and he adjusted the already-steaming collar of his jungle BDU’s accordingly. He was also heartened to see the gleaming sands of a shoreline barely half a mile distant. The crystal waters were like glass.

  “We got lucky again,” said Bainbridge. “The bottom’s only about twenty feet down. It’ll make for an easy salvage. Let’s hit that beach.”

  Chapter 2

  It was so dark under the jungle canopy that despite the presence of a full moon, Travis had trouble telling if his eyes were open or not. He, Michael Franks of Alpha, and Roger Byers of Bandit had drawn watch the first night. At first he was glad not to be digging latrines, but as time wore on, Travis was not sure he was better off. He had a flare for emergencies, but who could see in the pitch black? He didn’t even have a sharp stick to defend himself with.

  His flare had come from the raft’s survival supplies. Everything else was locked in watertight ases in the shuttle’s cargo bay, and that was currently located about five hundred yards offshore. Come first light, the order of business was salvage.

  Despite the fact that he was marooned in an alien jungle, Travis Buckley was happier than he’d been in many years. The Armada was more a home to him now than the troubled one he’d come from ever was. The darkness made it easy for his mind to drift back to the day his old life had ended.

  The boy sitting across from him was holding up well for someone about to go to prison, and Judge Stovall was impressed. Despite the strong jaw with its cleft chin and the broad shoulders, the eyes that tried to be defiant and failed were those of a frightened seventeen year old. This was the third time Travis had been in front of the judge, and that meant jail time. It was, however, the first time he had met with the judge privately, in chambers.

  “Mr. Buckley, do you know why I asked you here?” asked Stovall in a hard voice.

  Travis look at the floor a moment. Then he took a breath and gathered himself. This time the strong jaw and eyes were firm, even if the voice was quiet.

  “I reckon you’re about to send me to Hutchinson.”

  “We discussed that possibility the last time, did we not?”

  “Yes, sir.” Travis’s eyes dropped.

  “Then why are we talking? Why are you sitting in my courtroom again?”

  “’Cause I screwed up, sir.” This time the voice shook. The eyes were red-rimmed.

  “First degree assault. You beat up a grown man in a convenience store.”

  “He shouldn’t have talked to her like he did, sir! He shouldn’t have gra
bbed her like that – “

  “The law does not discern is such matters, young man. You put that man in the hospital. His family pressed charges.” Stovall had seen the security tapes from the store. He’d heard the man’s loud, hectoring voice as he tried to bully the young clerk. He’d seen the man thrown to the ground. He’d heard the sounds of the fists from a boy who’d obviously done some snapping of his own.

  “I know that, sir.” Travis’s face was in his hands now. He may have been quietly weeping.

  Judge Stovall took his time, and let Travis go on for a while. He scanned the case file sheets. Then he peered at the boy over his bifocals.

  “It says here that until last year you were on track to graduate, and doing quite well on the gridiron. You were being scouted by a small college, I believe?”

  “Yes, sir.” Travis’s face was the picture of misery now. Stovall handed him a tissue box. “McPherson College. Coach Bishop talked about me playing linebacker.”

  “Do you regret what you did?”

  “Yes, sir!” There was real heat in that desperate voice.