“Affirmative,” Davies replied as breezily as though they were just running some sand table walkthrough exercise for an afternoon training session. Never mind all the shattering and fused glass raining down on their armor. Or the battle going on across the desert floor. Or the concussive whump-whumps of the displaced energy guns. Over ambient they could hear the muffled braying of the donks working themselves up into a battle froth. L-comm translators gave a read on what was being screamed.
“Defend me, pack-brothers! There are no gods but the Four!”
The two legionnaires popped their bangers and hooked them in through the gaps in the broken glass to land on the fire control center floor. Besson counted off audibly as the armor dimmed and hardened itself against the impending EMP effect of the explosives. A nice detail newer Legion armor had decided to do without. And this action caused Besson to remember that they’d be using iron sights for at least five seconds before the armor rebooted the HUD and L-comm once more.
The bangers went off like the tinkling of distant broken glass. Besson popped up and counted six zhee, every one of them clutching madly at their floppy over-sized ears. Giant buckteeth gnashed in pain. Large baleful eyes almost rolled back into their heads.
Besson remembered another small detail.
The zhee, because of their ears, were highly affected by bangers. But they would recover fast. Not because they could hear again or even stand up straight, but because they were born berserkers. Even in a maddening pain to the point of blindness, they’d just start firing wildly, never mind the consequences. Which, in a way, still made them very, very dangerous.
Six of ’em.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Davies bolt forward, pounding down the catwalk just beyond the smashed main window of the fire control station.
Besson began to fire. He hit the nearest one in the chest. These zhee weren’t wearing armor. As fast as he could, he pivoted and shot two more while Davies executed a hard left along the catwalk and ran for the access hatch.
Shot discipline and breath control allowed Besson to hit another as the donk began to pivot, readying to fire.
In some distant part of his mind, the captain knew they were still blind and yet somehow, in their weird donk brains, they knew right where the access hatch was. Knew that the attack would come from there. Both the remaining zhee pivoted and began to fire at the hatch as Davies smashed through it, firing.
One shot caught him right in the chest and spun him around into the wall.
Besson blew the head off the nearest firing donk as Davies, back against the wall, ventilated the last donk with a spray of N-4 blaster fire on full auto.
Besson was running now. Running as fast as he could, fearing the wound the other soldier had taken was fatal.
I should have gone through the hatch! he screamed at himself, and he heard that long-lost and most fearsome of drill sergeants tell him, “Straight up you shoulda, Bay-son.”
That sadistic NCO had always pronounced his name like it was a dirty word. “Bay-son.”
“Now you got one of yours killed. You gonna make a real fine officer. A regular point you are, candidate.”
In Legion OCS, unlike the military academies, trainees were called candidates.
Besson made it to the downed man.
“Corporal Davies…” His combat medical training had kicked in. Always get the wounded man’s attention first. Next ask where he’s been hit.
“All good, sir. Got a bounce.”
The armor had deflected the shot.
“But it feels like I got hit in the chest with a sledgehammer! Still KTF, sir!”
Waves of relief washed over Besson, and he felt his voice catch in his throat. He hated, above all things, losing men. If you were to ask him what his job as a Legion officer really was, he’d have told you getting everyone home safely was his job. Or at least, the most important one to him. It both was and wasn’t his job. But he did it nonetheless.
“KTF, Davies!”
“You sure did, sir!” coughed Davies. “Nice shooting, Captain. Didn’t think I was gonna get a chance to contribute. But lookie there… I did,” he said, pointing at the blaster-mutilated zhee on the floor of the fire control center.
As Besson helped Davies to his feet, he saw the massive blaster sear on the right side of the man’s chest plate.
“What’re the odds,” said Davies, looking down at the black scorch mark and laughing.
“Million to one, some say. But the manual says one in ten… if you believe that,” Besson replied.
“Probably written by some point who never geared up, sir.” Davies struggled to get a full breath. Medical diagnostic assessment said the man had two broken ribs.
“Probably.”
Besson moved over the master fire control panel for the battery. He found a data input port and plugged in his drive. When he got a single line message asking him if he’d like to execute the file. He confirmed.
The constant cacophonic thunder that had almost faded into the background as some kind of permanent white noise… ceased. Here, at this battery, and at the rest of the air defense towers across the desert floor surrounding the Gibraltaar Rock, their fire missions were suspended. The entire air defense network surrounding Gibraltaar Rock was offline for the foreseeable future.
Of course the donks had never bothered to rewrite their security protocols for fire control. They were too busy waiting around to die gloriously for their four gods.
***
Once the tower had been secured, Captain Besson had assumed all elements of Shadow would be re-tasked. But then he’d seen the massive engagement going down on the sands before the trenches. Or more to the point, he’d listened. And judging by the battle chatter they could access through the L-comm, the battle had quickly devolved into a street brawl between masses of zhee and Legion companies. The Legion units had taken the outer defensive wall that guarded the trenches, and the trench fighting had turned thick and hot.
Besson advised command that they could redeploy forward into the trenches now that the air defense towers were all but useless. Each request was denied with a terse, “Hold position.”
And so Besson and his fellow legionnaires could only stand by and watch.
Out there above the burning sands that shimmered between the captured air defense towers and the massive bulk of the rising Fortress Gibraltaar, SLICs made gun runs on targets inside the trench works maze. Falling artillery sent massive plumes of gray dust and smoke into the hot desert sky. To the legionnaires of Shadow, watching from the tower, it was like seeing some distant circus in the night they desperately wanted to be a part of.
The ached for a ticket to ride.
If asked, they would have told you they were more than willing to pay the price of admission.
Finally, five minutes after a coordinated massive artillery barrage from every battery on the assault carriers’ upper gun platform decks, the orders for Shadow came in over L-comm.
Detach one squad to guard the tower. The rest of Shadow is going in.
Warpig was being left behind with what remained of Second Squad, which had taken the brunt of the beating on the access stairway. First, Third, and Fourth headed toward the rooftop landing pad to hitch a ride with some inbound SLICs.
On the horizon and headed straight at them—never mind the AA fire coming off the fortress and going after anything airborne—were two SLIC gunships dripping with auto-turret pods and AGMs, and one oversized operations SLIC. The operations SLIC set down on the tower landing pad amid a howl of engine whine and repulsor noise, while the two gunships held station over the tower, circling like lethal birds of prey. The legionnaires hustled from the access stairs below the wide landing pad and heaved themselves and their tactical rucks into the waiting dropship.
The big surprise was who was already on board. In addition to the two door gunners on the cargo deck, there was one other figure. L-comm identified that legionnaire as General Hannubal himself. Or… Wa
rlord.
When Captain Besson was aboard and had his count, he gave a thumbs-up to the crew chief, and the SLIC’s thrusters spooled up. The repulsors dropped down into their deep hum liftoff range as the bird departed the pad and pivoted, picking up an inbound course on the trenches.
Warlord was busy distributing charge packs and rations while one of the crew chiefs handed out fragger bandoliers deployed from a drop-down rack.
“Take as much as you want to carry,” offered Warlord over the L-comm, talking directly to the whole platoon. “But I advise you to take all the explosives you can get. You’re headed for some bunker busting, Leejes.”
The SLIC rocked back and forth, dodging incoming fire. The gunship off the port side opened up with a hypnotic stream of blaster pod fire on some ground target.
“Captain Besson.” Warlord was now talking via the command channel. “Bit of a mission here for you. Need you to re-form on the ground. We’re assigning you a new designation and giving you a reinforced company to take an assault lane appearing on your HUD now.”
“Can do, sir!” replied Besson as he studied the map he was seeing on his HUD overlay.
“Two Nine and Three Sixteen were devastated. As were a couple of other battalions. They got hit hard by the donks. At the LZ, you will enter the new grouping as commander of an ad hoc assault team we’re designating Dog Company. I need you to bust those bunkers along the lane and set up overwatch on the main entrance. Once you’re in position, we’re gonna push hard on the main entrance with two full battalions.”
“Roger that, sir.”
The flight streaked over the smoking ruins of an HK-PP that had gone down nose first into the sand. Most likely hit by one of Gibraltaar’s anti-armor batteries.
The crew chief held up one finger, meaning one minute to insertion.
Besson tapped his helmet twice in reply, indicating they were ready.
Every leej on the cargo deck repeated the gesture, signaling they too were ready.
The fire beyond the open cargo doors filled the sky as the dropship jinked left and then right to avoid being hit. They were getting close to the trenches now. Besson could see dead legionnaires lying along the wide concrete paths, sometimes hidden by the late morning shadows, sometimes lying in a patch of sunlight that had found its way down onto a trench floor. He could also see small firefights between Legion companies and entrenched defenders whose bunkers hadn’t been overrun yet. And there were, of course, a lot of zhee dead.
The SLIC’s thrust-reversers kicked in sharply, and the ship executed a hard turn to port, heeling over and circling the LZ marked out inside the trenches. Red smoke flares indicated where the ship would put down.
“Do your best, Captain,” said Warlord. “That’s all the Legion ever expects of you.”
The dropship flared and descended below the trench works onto a wide concrete pad that might have been some inner parade ground set up within the defensive perimeter. Battered legionnaires lay or sat with their backs against the walls, while others, N-42 teams, watched the entrances for a counter-assault. The crew chief began to shout over L-comm for the legionnaires to “Move! Move! Move!”
Quickly and with perfect order, Besson and the legionnaires dropped off the cargo door and onto the concrete foundation of the LZ within the trenches.
“Assault team L-comm is set up, Captain,” continued the general over the comm. “You’ve got an old sergeant major for your senior NCO. Trust him. He’s saved many a worse officer than yourself, and his men, from some fool’s folly. I know—he saved me once. But he talks a blue streak.”
Besson, hunched and trotting away from the bird, half turned and saluted as the dropship lifted up and out of the trench. It then streaked off and away toward some other errand that needed attending to on some other part of the battlefield.
Besson ran toward a group of NCOs near one of the N-42 positions. Via HUD tag, the sergeant major was made clear. Already the senior NCO was stepping out to meet his new captain.
“Cap’n,” said the old sergeant major. “Sergeant Major Julius MakRaven. I hear we need to kill a bunch of donks, sir. Welcome to Dog Company, sir.”
19
Stealth Shuttle Night Stalker Crash Site
Ankalor Slums
Cassius felt the sensation of many hands, which were really thick and hairy claws, grabbing at him roughly. Slapping and beating him. More hands pulled him along by his arms and one leg; they let the broken leg drag. He was dimly aware of that much, and thought it odd that he didn’t feel anything.
There was no mercy in how he was being handled. No desire to rescue. Just an urgency that felt dangerous. And wild.
He blinked away the darkness of the kick to the head. He was still at the crash site; they hadn’t moved him far. The zhee were all around, dancing, twirling, firing their blasters in the air. They jumped up and down and off of the shuttle. They were celebrating. Waving their kankari knives. Cutting themselves. And each other. In an ecstasy of violence and blood.
They were celebrating the crash of a ship that killed the Republic personnel on board. They were celebrating even more the two dead legionnaires they’d killed themselves. Several of them were currently beating the corpses, cutting them. Some took large bites out of the exposed flesh once the armor was stripped.
To hear the zhee’s huffy snorts and braying ululations, this was like winning some unexpected lottery that had fallen from the sky. It was the joy of the underdog beating a venerated and unstoppable sports team—a cross-town rival. Or celebrating the birth of a long-hoped-for child. Their exuberant celebration was that joyous.
It was not a private moment, either. It was all captured on live streaming digital, and broadcast on social media. Citizen journalists, using their own holocams and drones. Everything was captured and distributed far faster than the Republic could block it from going wide. Republic hackers just weren’t that good. They worked for the government, after all. And of course there were so many others that were more than willing to help make the Galactic Republic, and the Legion by default, look bad. The MCR would help, of course. And so there was mass dissemination of this horror show, of the victory taking place on the hot and dusty streets of the zhee slums that surrounded Ankalor City.
The galaxy watched in rapt attention. Knowing that this was important—another Kublar, perhaps?—but not knowing just how significant. They didn’t realize that Article Nineteen, the Champion Clause, was about to be proclaimed on the floor of the Senate and House of Reason. It would be proclaimed by a legionnaire who had received the Order of the Centurion. A man who had lost much in the service of the Republic, and was now declaring that his service would not be in vain.
Arrests were in the planning stages. Kill teams were preparing for the three a.m. door-kicker raids.
But the galaxy didn’t know about that. Not yet. And they likely didn’t see what would come next. They didn’t realize that this triumphal zhee celebration was something the Republic might use against the Legion itself. Because for so long now, to most everybody in the galaxy, the Legion and the Republic were one and the same.
Most of the galactic information and entertainment webs focused their streams on Cassius’s fate. He was still alive. And the galaxy had to know… what would happen next?
They did cut away to the dead body of a Dark Ops legionnaire whenever something particularly indignant was done to it by the zhee. Those men were dragged by the crowds, sometimes in opposite directions, until their battered and broken bodies tore apart. The zhee wore their armor as trophies. They cut out and ate their eyes. They desecrated those warriors. It wasn’t pretty.
What was being done to the pilot wasn’t much better. From time to time it seemed that the man with just the first hints of silver in his dark hair would begin to regain consciousness—and then those around him, his honor guard of pain, would beat him savagely until his head fell limp once more. This occurred repeatedly before he was tossed unceremoniously into the back of a repulsor tr
uck.
It was at this point that the feeds all changed to a broadcast sent out directly by the zhee interrogators. Finally, the enrapt viewers could hear what was said; they could hear Cassius’s feeble, almost delirious answers. What they didn’t know was that it was a farce of an interrogation—a false search for information his interrogators knew he didn’t possess.
After a time, the cameras cut to the Legion base in the Green Zone, though the view was restricted by the no-fly zone. The feed focused on the main gates, which remained closed. The cheering, bloodthirsty crowds parted as if on command, and the sled carrying the pilot inched by. The crowd fired their blasters and danced with each other in joyous gaiety.
In the back of the truck, ten zhee took turns beating the pilot’s body. They avoided the head, correctly judging that he couldn’t withstand many more blows there.
“Who are you?” brayed a zhee.
Cassius could only croak. “Chief… Warrant… Offic—”
A kick to the stomach. “You are Legion!”
“N-no. No… I’m an officer in the Republic… Army.”
A kick to his broken leg caused the useless limb to flop. Caused Cassius to scream in agony. Caused him to slip back into unconsciousness.
“You are Legion! You bring Legion assassins to kill zhee!”
“What is your strength?”
“Who is your general?”
They asked for all kinds of ridiculous information he’d didn’t have. All kinds of ridiculous questions he couldn’t answer, even had he been conscious.
The zhee worked themselves into a kind of frenzy. They took turns coming in at him to yell and spit in his face and then deliver some savage and unexpected blow with a balled-up claw or the butt of a blaster. And with each blow they got wilder. Their speech raced. At the end they were braying like wild animals.
Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7) Page 20