“Henrikson!” Flores shouted toward the door. “What is Squires’ situation?”
Henrikson dashed into the room, a shock of red running down his face, his helmet missing. “Ma’am, they’re suppressing the command center and the barricades on the other side of the hall. They’ve got one hell of a cross fire going.”
“Good.” Flores turned to look at Jack again. “Are you ready to finish this, sir?”
Jack wiped the blood off the buttplate of his rifle and onto the pants of one of the dead enemy soldiers, rage still clinging to the edges of his consciousness.
“Yes.” Jack’s voice was hoarse, a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Jack stalked out of the room, leaving Flores, Perez, and Arnot to get their platoons back in order. He slung his weapon over his shoulder, waving his arms in front of him to sweep the remaining smoke out of the air in front of him. Back in the corridor, Squires’ troops were taking cover against the wall that blocked most of the hallway to the left or tucked between the barricades that they’d come through to the right. The wall was like the barricades they’d defeated, reaching most of the way to the ceiling, with heavy netting filling the gap. There was a doorway at the far end of the wall, big enough for only one to pass at a time. Squires was next to the door, mirror in hand. Gunfire spat and roared from the other side of the wall, and bullets were passing through the netting and striking the ceiling over the Alliance troops, sending little fragments of concrete raining down on them and tinkling off their helmets.
Jack came to a stop next to Squires and looked down at the mirror he was holding out past the edge of the wall. Jack could see the hallway beyond, which looked to be open for fifty yards before hitting another set of overlapping barricades. In the middle of the open corridor was a gap that led onto a narrow staircase. In front of that was a low wall of sand bags, abandoned. Muzzle flashes from the barricades at the end of the hallway told Jack that they were occupied.
“Lieutenant, does that staircase go to the command center?”
“Yes, sir.” Squires straightened up and tucked the mirror away into one of his equipment pouches. “Unless it’s been destroyed, it’s closed off by a set of heavy doors. We’ll need to set charges to get in.”
That would mean crossing that open area while the enemy barricades fired on them. Jack shook his head. They’d be left with no choice but to fight through the enemy barricades on the other side, to repeat the hell they’d just pushed through yard by yard.
“We’re ready to move when you are, sir.”
Jack turned to see Flores standing next to him, her platoon clustered next to Squires’ troops along the wall.
“Get suppressing fire set up, Squires. Same drill as before. Flores, get your platoon ready to move on the command center. I want someone familiar with the command center going in. Arnot, your marines will assaul—”
Jack was cut off, pushed sideways slightly by the rocket launcher strapped to the back of one of Squires’ troops, who was standing to make room for the light machine gun crew.
“Sorry, sir,” the soldier said, adjusting the launcher on his back.
Jack grabbed the soldier’s sleeve, an idea hitting him.
“Private—” Jack spied the name tag on the front of the ranger’s armor. “Private Grady, get that thing loaded.”
“Are you crazy?” Flores stepped forward. “That could collapse the corridor.”
“Not to mention our eardrums,” Squires added.
“How much ammunition do your troops have, Captain? How many grenades?” Jack let go of Grady’s sleeve. “Do you think we can sustain another attack through barricades like that?”
Jack looked between the incredulous faces of Flores and the lieutenants, who had clustered around him now, their hands crossed in front of their chests.
Flores pursed her lips. “We don’t have a lot. But killing ourselves with that thing isn’t going to help.”
“We’re not going to die here,” Jack said. “There’s just enough distance between us and those other barricades, especially if we use the cover we have. I think it’s an acceptable risk.”
Jack could see Flores working the situation out in her mind, could see that she didn’t like it one bit. Finally, she nodded.
“All right, sir. We’ll make it happen.”
Jack tapped Grady’s shoulder, and the private took the launcher tube off his shoulder and set it on the ground. Another soldier helped him pull a rocket out of his bulging pack and set it inside the tube.
“Clear the hallway!” Squires shouted down the line. “Clear the backblast area.”
The marines and rangers did as they were told, backing up into the barracks room or threading their way back between the barricades they’d taken earlier. Finally, Jack was left with Grady, Squires, and Flores standing next to him against the wall. Grady squatted at the edge of the doorway, then flinched backward as a bullet struck the edge. Flores stepped next to him, trained her rifle around the corner and fired twice. The machine gun fire stuttered out.
She stepped back. “You’ve got a couple seconds while they clean their friend up.”
Grady leaned out again, took aim. “Firing.”
Jack felt the hot air wash back from the launcher, its roar muffled by his hands over his headset. An instant later, the shock of the rocket’s explosion washed through the air, compressing Jack’s sinuses painfully.
“Give me another one,” Grady said, looking over his shoulder. “I hit the barricade.”
Flores knelt down, pulled another rocket out of Grady’s pack, and stuffed it into the tube.
“You just missed so we could lighten this backpack for you.” Flores grinned.
Grady smiled back and leaned out. “Firing!”
Jack covered his ears again, felt the blast of the weapon and its rocket once more — and then it was unbelievably quiet. No gunshots, nothing. Jack held out his hand and took Squires’ mirror. He scooted to the edge, poked the mirror out past the edge of the wall.
The end of the hallway was filled with smoke and dust, but where the barricades were before, Jack could just make out a jumbled mess of concrete slabs and sand completely blocking the corridor. The rest of the hallway was intact, though cracks had appeared in the ceiling, streams of sand trickling through them. The stairs to the command center were still abandoned, though a few of the sand bags at its base had been knocked askew.
Jack handed the mirror back to Squires. “Captain, take your platoon in. Arnot, you’ll follow. Squires, I want you to lead Perez and his platoon back down to the level below this one and link up with Lieutenant Colion’s platoon. It won’t take the enemy long to figure out that they can circle around if they go down to that level and around.”
The little space behind the wall was packed full as Squires and Perez moved their troops through it and back through the barricades. Flores and Arnot lined their soldiers up against the wall, readied them to move. The silence beyond the wall was unbroken.
Had the enemy left the command center abandoned? Rigged it to blow?
But then a low, sustained rumble carried faintly through the air, seeming to come out of the walls themselves.
“What the hell is that?” Arnot asked. “Is that our artillery?”
“No,” Flores shook her head as the sound gradually faded out. “That’s one of the missiles firing.”
The missiles
Jack cursed under his breath. If the missiles were firing, that could only mean the Verdun was in trouble. Were they too late?
Jack looked for Captain Flores, found her, and held her gaze for a moment. She nodded.
“Alright, Fifth Platoon! We’re going to rush that command center all at once.” She stood out from the wall, facing her troops. Jack was struck by how much smaller the group had become. How many had they lost? A third? Half?
“Secure the silo station first, or destroy it,” Flores continued, stepping over to the door
way. “Let’s bring this home. Come on!”
Flores sprinted around the corner, and her rangers followed her. Jack let a couple troops pass him before he ran after them. He stepped out into the hallway and charged for the stairs. Flores and the rangers in front were nearly there.
Then a tall man emerged from the command center and stood at the bottom of the stairs, rocket launcher in hand.
Oh God!
“Back!” Jack shouted. “Get back!”
He turned, ran back toward the wall, dragging the closest rangers with him. He opened his mouth to shout at Arnot, who had appeared at the edge of the barrier.
The entire world shattered. A fiery hurricane threw Jack to the ground, and wasp stings peppered his legs, his shoulder, his neck. Someone screamed, followed by the thud and crack of tumbling concrete, the hiss of sand. The rotten-egg odor of explosive and the choking rasp of cement dust smothered Jack where he lay.
He blinked, tried to shake his head to make his ears stop ringing. He pulled himself to his feet, looked around. The corridor had collapsed ten yards in front of him. Perhaps half the rangers of Flores’ platoon were dusting themselves off, picking themselves off the ground. Arnot and his marines were filing out from behind the wall and helping their comrades, guiding the wounded back toward the rear. The others?
Jack looked at the pile of rubble, saw legs and arms sticking out from underneath it. Flores? Jack stood there, reeling from what had happened, trying to find a solution.
“Sir, let me help you to the rear.”
Jack turned and saw Arnot standing next to him, concern written on his face.
“No. We’re getting through.”
“You got shrapnel splinters all over you.” Arnot put his hands on Jack’s shoulder.
“No!” Jack shook Arnot off, bent down to grab his rifle.
“Sir, we’ll start digging, but there’s nothing you can do to speed it up. Take care of—”
“Henrikson!” Jack spotted the ranger standing with his hands on his knees, covered in dust. “Is there any way around this?”
Henrikson shook his head. “These are the only corridors into the command center.”
Jack cursed, wanted to throw himself at the rubble, kick it, hit it.
“That’s not entirely true.”
Jack looked to see Fletcher pulling himself up, Arnot lending him a hand.
Jack walked over to Fletcher, put a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me everything, and tell me quickly.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Christine was grateful for the sun in her face. It hid Ryan’s expression from her, gave her an excuse for the tears trying to gather in her eyes. But the sun would be gone soon, hidden behind the superstructure of the huge troopship in the bay, the ship that would take her to her new billet on Kensington. A first-class ticket to nowhere.
“It’s not as if you’re falling off the edge of the galaxy,” Ryan was saying. “I know you’ll write to me as often as you can.”
Christine shifted, straightening the stiff service dress uniform she was wearing for the journey.
“Maybe there’s no need for me to.” Christine looked at the ground, stared at her polished black shoes in front of Ryan’s worn, brown ones. “Maybe it’s better for both of us if we let go now.”
There was a long silence. Christine hated the words that had come out of her mouth, wished she could pull them back. But facts were facts. She’d be gone on Kensington for years, too far away to return for leave, surviving off messages and the occasional photograph. It didn’t take a genius to know how much that would hurt. Christine had already been through that with her parents, living letter to letter, planning for some next time, only for it to never come. She wouldn’t do it again, and she wouldn’t put Ryan through it.
She felt Ryan’s hands on her shoulders. “If I wanted to let go, don’t you think I’d have done it by now?”
Christine shook her head, looked up at Ryan, blinked back tears against the sun. “Tell me that when you haven’t seen me in six months.”
Ryan’s grip tightened on Christine’s shoulders. “Babe, you forget who you’re dealing with. I don’t think this is about distance. I think this is about your parents.”
Christine brushed off Ryan’s hands, stepped back. She looked for something to say, to throw back at him. All she could come up with was, “Drop it.”
Ryan crossed his arms across his chest. “You’re afraid something will happen to you, or to me, and so you’re hoping I’ll take the opportunity to chicken out of this and protect you from losing someone again.”
“You really think you’ll last two years apart? And wherever they send me after that?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Christine almost laughed. “Just like that?”
“Yes. And I have proof. Hold out your hand.”
Christine gaped at him. If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny.
“Come on. Hold it out.”
Christine sighed and stuck her hand out, palm up. Ryan dug into his pocket, pulled something out of it, and placed it on her hand. She stared at it, and gasped.
A ring! It was plain gold, no diamond. But she didn’t want any of that nonsense anyway. You can’t wear a rock with a uniform.
She looked up at Ryan, expecting the sun to help her save face again, but finding it completely hidden by the troopship. Ryan’s grey eyes were fixed on her, his lips curved slightly into a smile.
“Christine, I can’t say that I don’t wish you had a different job, something that kept you closer to me and out of danger. But I know that I’m happier with you than I’ve ever been with anyone else. And maybe I can’t have you with me as much as I want. But what I can have, I want. I’d rather spend the occasional leave with you than spend a lifetime with someone else.”
Christine’s ears rang, her pulse kicking up. She wanted him to stop and take that ring away. She wanted him to kiss her and slip it on her finger.
“Christine Flores,” Ryan said, kneeling in front of her. “Will you marry me?”
She couldn’t breathe. She was fighting for air, fighting to answer him, to shout the ‘yes’ that came leaping from her chest. But there was no air in her lungs, no sound came out—
* * *
Christine’s eyes flicked open and focused on the concrete floor in front of her. Panic gathered at the cloudy edges of her brain. Where was she? What was going on? She heard a moan, realized it was coming from her own mouth. Sharp pain stabbed at her side, but when she tried to gasp, she couldn’t breathe in. She tried again, struggled desperately to pull air into her aching lungs. She felt her side, trying to locate the source of her agony, felt a huge dent in her armor.
She shook her head, trying to clear it, and rolled onto the dented side, her hands finding the clasps for her armor. Her fingers were stiff, clumsy. Christine cursed under her breath, biting her lip against the pain, against the crushing weight of the armor.
The armor opened and fell away from her, and air rushed into her body. She rolled onto her front, her hands on the ground in front of her face. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, focusing on breathing in and out, on remembering where the hell she was. The details faded in gradually.
The smells of smoke and burned explosives.
The dim flicker of a single, damaged light fixture.
Her carbine lying a few feet to her right with its bayonet fixed.
The jumble of debris blocking the collapsed corridor a few dozen yards in front of her.
The stairway just ahead and to the right, surrounded by a ring of toppled and split sandbags.
Kensington. The fort. The attack.
“Son of a bitch!” She coughed.
That man, the enemy with the rocket launcher. She’d seen him appear at the staircase, had tried to shoot him down. But he’d popped out and fired in an instant, and Christine had dived for cover, trying to drag a couple of her rangers with her.
Her platoon!
Christine pushed hersel
f to a sitting position, looked around, and saw another mess of concrete and sand filling the hallway a few yards behind her. She could see an arm sticking out from under the rubble, and there was Lazaar’s head and shoulders peeking out from the debris, as if trying to crawl out from under it. A curl of smoke rose slowly from his smashed radio backpack, and a pool of blood was spreading from his mouth.
Had they all been killed in the collapse? And what about Wilcox and the others?
Christine’s thoughts were interrupted by the low grumble of another missile launching outside. She sat for a minute, listening to the noise, her mind sorting through possible courses of action. If any of the attack force had survived, they’d find a way around or dig through. She could wait for them and then move in with sufficient force to take the command center.
Who are you kidding?
At this rate, she’d be surprised if the Verdun wasn’t a heap of scrap before help arrived.
She pressed her thumb against her ring, balled her hand into a fist around it.
She scooted toward her carbine, pulled it into her hands, and ran her gaze over its length. No damage she could see, except for a few scratches. She dropped the magazine, looked at the witness holes in its side. Only two shots left. She placed the magazine on the floor and patted her ammunition pouches. They were all empty, except for one. That meant twenty-two shots. Christine pulled the fresh magazine from its pouch, slapped it into her carbine, and tucked the nearly empty one away. She continued her inspection of her equipment belt, found two grenades. But where the hell was her pistol? The holster and its magazine pouch had been torn from her side, probably by whatever had dented her armor. She looked around for the weapon, couldn’t find it in the low light.
Probably under all that rubble. She’d have to do without it. She reached up, felt her bare head. She’d have to do without her helmet, too, and its radio headset.
Christine stood, biting her lip as pain shot through her side again, irritated at how wooden her legs felt. She shook herself, willing the last blur of her unconsciousness to fade away, to regain her senses. She’d need them now.
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