Fletcher nodded and led the way, the others following behind him, Neville muttering under his breath. Sam took his rifle off his back, held it ready. Hopefully the bastards hadn’t found their way down here yet, though by the sound of muffled gunfire coming from ahead, he doubted they were so lucky.
They skirted around the cistern, a huge dark pool with pipes leading out of it and into the low ceiling. Even Sam had to crouch. He stopped for a moment, dug the key ring and loose keys out of his pocket, and tossed them into the water.
Try finding them there, you bastards.
Sam caught up to the group as they passed through a doorway and into another cistern bay. They plodded along in silence, sticking to the narrow walkway that crossed the pool. The smell of rust and stale air filled Sam’s nostrils. The sound of gunfire was growing louder as they went. They crossed another cistern, and another, finally reaching a heavy metal door flecked with rust. Fletcher cranked the handle, then paused, shifting to allow Cassas and Gosse to help him. The door crank squeaked and ground open.
The sounds of fighting exploded into the room. Screams. Gunshots. Shouted orders. Sam looked out and saw a short staircase leading down to the wide, main corridor that ran around the cisterns on the lower level. Beyond and to the left was the corridor that led to the vehicle bay and the main gate. Just in front of where they were, a barricade had been set up, and Sam could see a dozen or so soldiers clustered behind it, next to Lieutenant Lory.
Sam turned back to his troops. “Becker, Maher, we’ll cover. The rest of you, break across for the barricade when we say go.”
Becker and Maher worked into position near the doorway, as the others shifted to let Sam through. Sam walked partway down the stairs, took a deep breath, then aimed his rifle around the corner.
Bodies littered the hallway. Further along was another barricade, where enemy troops were hiding and firing in bursts. Sam waited for one to pop up, pulled the trigger, and watched as the woman staggered backward, clutching her chest.
“Go!” Sam shouted over his shoulder as he sprayed the enemy barricade with fire. He heard Becker and Maher shooting from over his shoulder, the din of their rifles filling his head. He saw Neville, Cassas, Gram, and Fletcher streak past him and run to the Alliance barricades, where the waiting soldiers pulled them into cover.
“You two, go!” Sam kept firing as Maher and Gosse slip past him. He took a deep breath and sprinted across the corridor. He dove behind the barricade, and the air left his lungs as he hit the ground.
“Glad you made it, sir!” Lory shouted over the cacophony of barking rifles.
Sam rolled, sat up to a low crouch. “We’re getting out of here, Lieutenant. What’s the status of the defense?”
Lory turned from his rifle, huddled close to Sam, his green eyes oddly bright. “There are hundreds of them pouring in through the northern counterscarp bunker. We’ve got a position on the second level defending the machine gun turret over the gate. If they’ve managed to hold, they’ll cover your escape. If not…”
Sam nodded. “It’ll be a short trip.”
One of Lory’s group crumpled to the ground, clutching his shoulder.
Sam clapped Lory on the shoulder. “Good luck, Lieutenant. With any luck, we’ll be back.”
Lory held out his hand. Sam took it, and they shook. “See you later, sir.” Lory turned back to his soldiers. “Keep pouring it on!”
Sam made eye contact with Fletcher, who tapped the rest of the command center group, getting their attention. Sam ran, bent over, down the corridor toward the garage, his group following close behind him. They reached a staircase, ran down it, and emerged in the vehicle bay. The colonel’s jeep was there, next to a larger truck.
Sam hopped into the driver’s seat of the truck, stuffing his rifle in beside him, and started the electric motor. The vehicle grumbled as the rest of the group climbed inside the open back.
“Stay low!” Sam shouted over his shoulder as he backed the truck up and drove it down the wide corridor leading toward the front gate. Sam stopped the vehicle next to two dazed-looking soldiers standing by the guardhouse. One of them had a bandage on his arm.
“Give us cover as we move out,” Sam shouted down to them.
“Yes, sir!” They disappeared into the guardhouse.
Sam could feel the fresh, clean air blowing over him, could barely make out the tree line and the road paralleling the rail line below. He took a deep breath, then gunned the motor. The truck shot out into the night and down the road, gravel spitting and tinkling off its undercarriage as they flew. To his right, running toward the gate, were a few dozen attackers, who aimed their rifles at the truck, shouting. Beyond them, near the edge of the woods to the fort’s north side, hundreds of hostiles were running toward the fort and disappearing into the ditch near the north counterscarp bunker.
Bullets thwacked into the side of the truck, and Sam ducked his head, pushing the vehicle as fast as it would go. A wall of noise washed over him from behind. He looked in the rearview mirror to see the west machine gun turret, the one closest to the gate, firing toward the enemies. Sam almost wanted to cheer. At least something was going well.
Several of the enemy soldiers were knocked down in their tracks, while the rest dove for the ground. Sam looked ahead, saw the line of forest drawing nearer and nearer. They were almost to the main road now. Just a couple hundred yards more, and they’d be away.
A patch of ground in front and to the left exploded. Sam cursed, swerved around the smoking crater. He glanced over, saw some of the enemies standing and pointing what looked like rocket launchers toward the truck. The turret was gunning them down just about as fast as they could stand.
They aren’t afraid of dying.
The realization terrified Sam. He bottomed out the accelerator just as he saw one of the attackers get to his feet. The man jerked as bullets hit him, and fell to his knees, his rocket launcher still tracking the truck. A jet of smoke lanced out. Sam tried to swerve, but the road in front of him disappeared in a fiery explosion.
A hard bump. A crunching sound. A scream.
Sam shook his head, trying to push the accelerator. A second later, he realized that the truck wasn’t moving. He blinked, saw that the front of the vehicle had toppled into the crater left by the explosion. He found his rifle, pulled himself out of the driver’s seat, and hopped down to the ground, careful to keep the truck’s bulky form between him and his opponents. He reached the back of the truck just as Fletcher and Gosse hopped out and joined him. A second later, Becker, Maher, Gram, Cassas, and Neville followed them.
Bullets whined nearby, smacking the truck with a metallic clanging noise. Sam ducked and looked under the truck. All the enemies who had been running for the gate were lying still, but others were shooting from atop the superstructure itself, just outside the effective firing arc of the turret. He glanced at the dark line of the forest to the southwest, perhaps seventy yards away now.
“Who’s a good shot here?” Sam yelled over the chatter of the machine gun turret.
Cassas raised her hand.
“You’re with me,” Sam said. “The rest of you, run for it as soon as we fire.”
The others nodded. Neville looked more than ready to bolt.
Sam got onto his belly, wrapping his left arm in the rifle’s sling and aiming the weapon under the truck. He saw Cassas do the same next to him. He picked a target, careful to control his breathing, and fired. A second later, the enemy stumbled and dropped to the ground, causing the others around him to dive to cover instinctively. As brave as they were, they clearly weren’t well trained. Cassas’ rifle barked beside Sam, dropping another enemy.
“Go!” Sam shouted as he found another target, fired. He heard footsteps padding away on the grass. Some of the attackers seemed to have spied the group emerging from behind the truck because they increased their rate of fire. Sam picked out another target, lying prone and aiming toward the fleeing soldiers. Sam fired, and the target fell li
mp, as if he had gone to sleep. And then another — someone trying to stand with a rocket launcher — but Cassas’ bullet put the target down before he could pull the trigger. After they’d knocked down several more enemies with precisely aimed shots, Sam rolled to look behind him.
The others had made it to the trees and were set up to cover him. He waved, saw Fletcher return the signal.
“Cassas, move!” Sam stood, helped Cassas to her feet. They sprinted together toward the cover of the trees. Clods of dirt exploded around them as bullets hissed past. The group in the trees was firing past them, toward the enemies behind them. Sam didn’t try to see if they were hitting anything, tried only to concentrate on pushing his body as fast as he could move it. Suddenly, Cassas screamed, grabbed her thigh, her step faltering. Without breaking his stride, Sam caught hold of her arm, helping her dash forward toward the trees. It was only a few yards now.
Blinding pain seared through Sam’s back. He cried out, felt himself slowing down, felt Cassas starting to fall without his support. His vision swam in front of him. He saw Fletcher reaching out, the edge of the trees just ahead. He gritted his teeth, gathering all his strength into one last effort. He threw Cassas forward, launching her into Fletcher’s arms. Another barb of pain tore through him. Unable to take another step, he fell to his knees, saw Cassas looking toward him, shouting something at him, her eyes wide in the darkness. She looked so young.
Too young to die.
Sam waved an arm weakly, trying to make the others run. He hit the ground, and then felt no more.
Neville ran, crashing through the woods after the forms of the other soldiers, two of them holding Corporal Cassas between them. He stumbled, cursed, and kept running. He ran until his feet ached, until his uniform was stained and torn from the branches that reached out of the darkness to grab him, until his lungs burned and he thought he would die, the sounds of gunfire fading away behind him.
Chapter Sixteen
“Get us out of the water!” Kim winced as another vibration shook the Verdun’s hull. “We can’t wait here any longer.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Stetler shouted from the helm.
“Atmospheric escape course plotted,” Urquhart added.
Kim leaned over Voth where he sat at Wilcox’s station, looking at a camera view of the fight outside. Small attack ships, some of them standard cargo tenders, others a kind of light fighter Kim had never seen before, were swarming in all directions, firing toward the Verdun where she lay in the water, only their engines visible as tiny points of light in the night sky.
Where the hell had they come from?
They’d been on the radio with Wilcox, hearing his report on the attack at the barracks. Suddenly, Voth, who’d just happened to be standing near the operations console, had seen incoming contacts on the radar. Luckily, they’d been prepared, easily fending off their first few attacks with flak and machine cannon fire. But for every enemy craft they seemed to destroy, another would show up. The Verdun was vulnerable in the water. She couldn’t deploy whatever was left of her magnetic ordnance deflector, and the fighters would have a harder time protecting a stationary ship in the water. The only option was to retreat to a position of strength.
“How far away are the ground forces?” Holsey’s voice broke over the din as the lift thrusters began to fire.
“They’re still cleaning up at the barracks, ma’am,” Chief Baudouin said. “More than ten miles away.”
“We can’t consider leaving them.” The anger in Holsey’s voice mounted, called to Kim’s own frustrations. “They’ll be trapped until we can return.”
“If we don’t get out of here now, there won’t be a ‘we’ for them to return to,” Kim called back over her shoulder.
“We’ve got several larger contacts inbound,” Voth shouted.
Kim turned, saw Voth punching the controls to change the camera view, switching it to infrared. Kim’s insides dropped.
“Holy son of a bitch!” Voth’s profanities were much politer than the ones in Kim’s head.
On the screen were the flickering, grainy green shapes of six warships flying toward the Verdun from the north along the coastline. They looked a little smaller than destroyers, a configuration Kim hadn’t seen before.
“We’re out of the water,” Stetler was saying. “Beginning ascent procedure.”
“We’re not here to win a maneuvering contest, Mr. Stetler. Get us into space.” Kim tapped Voth’s shoulder, breaking his continued stream of profanities. “Tyler, I need you down in fire control. I want timed, high-explosive shells right up their noses.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Voth stood and jogged to the door while Holsey relayed Kim’s orders to fire control into her microphone headset.
“Baudouin!” Kim turned. “Get Ensign Fowler up here to take operations.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Kim walked to Holsey, who had her arms folded across her chest.
“Without support, the ground forces will be destroyed. You know that, right?” Holsey arched an eyebrow and fixed Kim with an icy glare.
Kim shook her head. “They may make it, but we absolutely won’t in the water.”
Holsey nodded ever so slightly, but said nothing back.
The ship was moving steadily upward now, the vibrations in the deck plates becoming smoother as the ship picked up speed. Muffled booms broke through the air, and the room shook slightly.
Kim glanced at the door as Ensign Fowler bolted in, his hands working his jacket buttons, his flaming red hair ruffled.
“I was in the mess hall. I heard we’re under—”
“Operations, Ensign.” Holsey barked. “Move!”
Kim watched the young man run to Wilcox’s station, not sure whether she was more annoyed or amused at his inexperience.
No sooner had Fowler sat down then he turned around, his eyes wide. “They’re shelling us. They don’t seem to be hitting much, though.”
“Let’s keep it that way. Mr. Stetler, don’t spare the whip.” Kim left Holsey and worked her way to her chair. “Chief, get the fort on the line, tell them we’ll be needing their silos immediately.”
Baudouin nodded, then frowned. “Ma’am, I’m already receiving a transmission from the fort.” Her hands flew over the controls, changing to the appropriate channels.
From across the room, Kim saw her grow pale.
“The fort is under attack,” Baudouin shouted, her voice oddly strained. “They’re requesting immediate assistance.”
Kim bit her lip. “Explain our situation, Chief. We’re not in any position to help until we can engage these enemy ships in space.”
“Without the fort to support them…” Holsey trailed off.
Kim didn’t look behind her, but she knew she felt the same despair as her second-in-command. There was no other option, and they would all have to deal with it.
Another boom, louder this time. Then another.
“They’re bracketing us!” Kim’s patience was thinning. “Commander, where are those shells?”
“Firing now.” Just as Holsey finished speaking, a pulse vibrated through the deck, followed by a thunderclap.
Kim stood, walked over to Fowler to look at the monitors again. Another bang. She reached the ensign just in time to see angry orange and black clouds blossoming around the enemy ships, which slowly spread their formation apart. They gradually fell behind as the repeated volleys of shells forced them to give the Verdun some distance. But the smaller fighter craft were still chasing the ship upward, shooting small rockets toward it.
The room rattled again. An alert klaxon sounded from the damage control monitor, and Fowler studied the screen. He rotated in his chair to look back at Kim. “They hit one of our lift thrusters, but it’s still functioning at reduced capacity.”
“We’re breaking atmosphere,” Stetler said. “We’ll be in space in a couple seconds.”
Kim looked toward Baudouin. “As soon as we’re up, I want the interceptors launched.”
>
Baudouin nodded, keyed her microphone, and called down to Lieutenant Blake.
“I think we may want to reconsider,” Fowler said, something in his tone of voice making Kim’s pulse quicken. She looked down at the screen, which was now showing the view from amidships, pointing forward along the Verdun’s hull and toward the ship’s bow. As the sky faded gradually from pale blue to the black of space, Kim saw them.
At least a dozen more warships were holding position above the planet. A second later, the area in front of the Verdun burst into a solid cloud of explosions.
“Activate the ordnance deflector.” Kim gripped the back of Fowler’s chair as the deck shook again.
“It’s still only partially functional,” Fowler called over his shoulder. “We were only just beginning the major repairs.”
“I’ll take it.” Kim heard the faint hum of the ordnance deflector switching on.
“We won’t be able to make it through them.” Holsey was at Kim’s elbow now, her voice quiet. “We’ll have to stand and fight.”
“And get sandwiched in the middle?” Fowler shook his head. “I—I don’t think we can take it in our current condition, ma’am.”
The deck shuddered, and the lights flickered.
Kim watched on the screen as another set of explosions erupted in front of the Verdun. A second later, the Verdun’s front turrets fired back, though Kim couldn’t see the result through the wave of shell bursts that always seemed to stay just in front of the ship as it pushed into space. Then an idea came to her.
“Mr. Stetler, keep heading straight at the blockade. Maintain maximum speed.”
“They’re not going to just step out of the way,” Holsey said.
Kim turned to meet her eyes. “I think they will.”
“Ma’am?” Fowler looked around, his facial expression clearly showing that he thought she was crazy.
“I don’t think they want to damage us,” Kim said, holding Holsey’s gaze. “They’ve had plenty of opportunities to hit us, especially with our damaged ordnance deflector, but they’re mostly shooting in front of us.”
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