“You, you, and you,” said the crouching sergeant major to three nearby legionnaires. “Deploy your bangers on three. That ought to discombobulate them infernal bots. The rest of you, pop up and put all the fire you got on ’em. One… two… three!”
The three legionnaires did as they were instructed, and the rest of Second Team popped up from their various positions and fired at what should have been stunned bots. But the bots fired right back at them as though they’d shaken off the EMP effects of the bangers in a mere picosecond.
Thankfully, no one got shot, but the bots continued to pour fire into the legionnaires’ ad hoc defensive positions. They inched forward a step at a time as though they had all the time in the world
“Well, sir,” said the old NCO humbly. “I, unlike many officers I have served under, do not claim to know everything. Those things must be hardened. In other words, I’m outta tricks. How we doin’ on charge packs?”
The leejes sounded off with what they had.
“Well, we at least got the ability to defend ourselves goin’ for us at this moment in the game.”
“Sir,” piped up a leej tagged as Stacey. “I did some time in combat engineers on my first enlistment. I’m looking at the ceiling, and these here load-bearing pylons that’re probably holding the whole thing up. Trenches might be right above that. I could bring all that down on ’em.”
Sergeant Major MakRaven practically swore in disgust at the thought. “Stacey! Then what? Drop the ceiling on the rest of us. Hell, boy, what good is that? Armor can only take so much. And I’m pretty sure it ain’t gonna take no ceiling.”
Stacey waited for the senior NCO’s tirade to blow itself out.
“I think I can drop most of it on them, Sergeant Major. We can squeeze back in that tunnel a bit and we’ll be fine.”
“You think!” shouted the NCO. “That’s all you got, son. A thought that you might not crush us all with the roof! And of course I suppose you’re carrying non-infantry-designated det-cord with which to accomplish your hare-brained scheme?”
Beyond the blaster fire they could hear the servo-assisted joints of the bots closing in. It sounded like a lot of them.
“Looks like it’s all we have, Sergeant Major,” remarked Captain Besson.
“Well that is indeed a sad state of affairs, sir. This is a classic last stand. I prefer to shoot my way out of such predicaments than be crushed by a falling ceiling like a bug, or trapped in a tunnel by a wall of debris. But… seein’ as how you are the captain… I will allow that you may decide to seal our fates with this here young legionnaire’s bold yet foolish plan to prevent a bunch of tough-as-nails war fighters gettin’ killed by bots.” He spat this last out, the word “bots,” with a certain amount of disgust. It seemed he had a particular hatred for bots.
“Wrap it,” said Besson to Stacey, indicating the nearest support pylon. “The rest of you fall back into the tunnel.” After a pause, he added to Stacey, “You do know what you’re doing?”
“I got this, sir. I could make a pole fall and hit a credit anywhere I placed it within the radius of drop. I’ll bring that half of the room down on them for sure.” Stacey said all this while rooting around in his tactical ruck and pulling out the cord and necessary supplies he would need. In a minute and change, he had the pylon wrapped at the base. Wider loops on one side. Tighter loops on another. Then he nodded to the captain and fell back to the tunnel.
“Well, no use waiting,” said the sergeant major.
Besson nodded. “Blow it.”
Stacey brought the entire ceiling down on the advancing bots.
Which didn’t surprise anyone as much as what came down with the ceiling. The zhee who’d been in the trench above were now spilling out into the ruins of the sub-basement. Fortunately, most had been injured in the fall. But their pack brothers still up in the trench above looked down in stunned belief.
“Navs up… Got a re-route!” shouted Besson. “Up along that trench and we’re almost there. Turtle and follow me!”
With Besson at the tip of the spear, and each legionnaire falling into the much-practiced basic movement-to-contact-in-tight-quarters “turtle” formation, everyone watching their sectors and the sergeant major barking commands from the center, Second Team advanced out into the swirling dust of the collapsed storage room. They ascended part of the collapsed ceiling that had also been the floor of the trench, shooting down zhee as they moved quickly upward.
Within seconds they were in the trench and firing into the flank of the zhee line at point blank. The action was so close that the sergeant major was firing his blaster pistol over the head of a crouched Captain Besson while the lead team members deployed their bayonets and stabbed at the zhee—who throwing down their weapons either in surrender or in favor of their wicked kankari knives. Huzu, in the rear, kept the zhee on the far side of the sinkhole busy with high-cycle blaster fire, while Davies hosed the rest with the N-42.
The zhee were quickly routed, and those who still could fled to the far end of the trench, leaving a corridor of their dead blasted and bleeding out.
When the trench was clear, Besson raised his left hand indicating a halt, while keeping his barrel on the trench and the dying zhee.
As charge packs were swapped out, the sergeant major levered his head over the side of the trench facing the assault. “Well, lookee there. We made good progress, sir. We made such good progress, in fact, that we are well in front of the line of assault.”
Which was true. They were now inside the third ring of the defenses.
“Which means—technically, sir—that we are indeed surrounded.”
***
Task Force Whirlwind
Assault Carrier Hurricane
Landing Zone Near Fortress Gibraltaar
Ankalor
“Commodore,” said the CIC officer aboard the Hurricane. “Problem, sir.”
The CIC officer looked grave. He unfolded a flexy and showed the commodore exactly what the cause for concern was.
“They’re coming out of the desert, and out of Ankalor City. On fast-attack speeders. All indications are it’s a light force and our defenses should be more than enough to handle them. But…”
Within the real-time scrolling tactical display images on the flexy, the map showed the Legion forces down before the mass of Gibraltaar Rock. It even showed major asset groups engaged in the battle within the trenches and the near-invulnerable IDS range at the front of all three carriers. But what drew the commodore’s attention was at the rear. Hundreds of unidentified red-tagged tangos, inbound on the carrier group’s position.
The zhee were actually counterattacking.
“Go to battle stations,” said Commodore Rist. “And let’s divert our air cover to screen. Get me the general.”
A moment later General Hannubal appeared on a display. He was still in the back of his operations SLIC, somewhere over the thick of the battle above the trenches, directing troop movements and providing fire support and emergency medevac.
“Hannubal…” began the commodore. “We’ve got inbound zhee marauders trying to attack the carriers. We should be able to handle it, but we’re going to need to divert close air support to see if we can break up the attack. We’ll leave the indirect fire in place for your units to continue the assault.”
Hannubal nodded. “Roger that, Commodore. Let me know if it gets too hot, and I can divert some resources to reinforce. We’re close to cracking the front door.”
The commodore nodded, and the link was broken.
Across the bridge, the alarm for battle stations began to whoop. The situation was detailed over the ship’s address system and the crew were told to reorient to meet the incoming counterattack.
22
Dog Company, Second Team
Fortress Gibraltaar
Trenches
To their credit, the zhee did not retreat in the face of Second Team’s assault along the trenches, effectively flanking the defenders. But that didn�
�t mean that they effectively counterattacked against the insurgent legionnaires within their lines, either. Instead the zhee’s zeal conspired to work against them as they trampled, and occasionally shot or even knifed, their own as they surged to meet the attacking legionnaires.
At a small mortar pit, at a place where the trench opened out into a small square meant to accommodate an indirect fire crew, Besson moved Davies forward while the rest shifted into an active defense. Suddenly the zhee were facing the murderous onslaught of the powerful N-42 workhorse heavy blaster, which blasted the zhee to pieces without mercy. The deadly weapon system required little thought; it needed only to be fed with a continuous supply of linked charge packs.
A couple of the zhee attempted to use the jump jets on the armor they’d been issued, but that merely brought them to the attention of the Legion’s ranged snipers, who were set up back along the first ring, hidden in the shadows and waiting for just such an opportunity. What the snipers failed to hit, the squad-designated marksmen in the other advancing units managed to take care of, for the most part. And when one zhee did manage to set down with a flare of jets right in the midst of Second Team, the sergeant major shot the donk without ceremony, blowing the zhee’s brains all over the trench wall.
“Don’t get me wrong,” MakRaven said. “I’m a good friend to many a zhee. But the only good donk is a dead donk. That’s a fact, boys.” The sergeant major pronounced this despite the volume of return fire on the pit.
Stacey got hit, the shot destroying his arm guard and breaking his arm. As Huzu and the sergeant major stabilized him, the NCO asked Stacey, “You done, kid? Or you wanna fight a little more today?”
Stacey, who looked pale and shaken, got to his feet with a groan.
“That arm’s gonna be okay,” Mak said. “And if not, the Repub can grow you a new one. Here—take my sidearm. I’ll play with your rifle for a while.”
And with that they swapped weapons.
A few minutes later, the battle quieted. The zhee had either been slaughtered to the point of zero viability, or they’d decided to cede the trench and fall back to their bunker. Still, Besson didn’t let the team move forward until he’d shot every last zhee that was still twitching along the length of the trench. Finally, he gave the hand signal to form up into a wedge and follow him forward.
“You want me on point, Cap’n?” asked Davies.
“Negative. Let the forty-two rest for a few minutes,” Besson replied.
“She all right,” Davies said. “She just got a taste for the work. And frankly, she hopes there’s a bit more of it.”
They advanced down the trench, following the route to target in their HUDs. At the next passage through the defensive line they’d hook left and take a side trench up to a bunker that overwatched the main gate.
A furious exchange of blaster fire could be heard in a nearby trench, indicating two sides had met each other for battle. This was quickly followed by a series of explosions that indicated the use of fraggers.
“Most likely us,” commented the sergeant major.
Besson hustled down the trench, stepping over the zhee dead as cautiously as possible, knowing that at any moment one could wake up from playing dead and start firing, or worse, detonate a suicide vest. If that happened, they’d never reach Oscar Whiskey, and the Legion would charge into certain death.
Sergeant Major MakRaven had lectured at length on the fun little trick of zhee suicide vests.
“The zhee aren’t as dumb as everyone thinks they are. I mean they are dumb… after a fashion. But they’re also some of the craftiest devils you’ll ever face. It’s not uncommon, as I have encountered this particular little tactic myself on occasion, for them to lose a small engagement and put what they call a ‘sacrifice’ in with the dead. So we got to watch ourselves in here, boys. A sacrifice can turn a victory into a loss in a heartbreak moment.
“Had that happen at Watti Sharah with the Tenth back when I was staff sergeant. Just me and three others survived a two-hundred-mile trek, on foot I might add, back to the forward operations base after a sacrifice took out the ops ship the point was in. We’d set up an ambush, and the point wanted to come in and assist after we’d killed ’em all. Problem was, they’d put that sacrifice in with the company we shot up. He just laid there and played dead until the ship came in, and then he detonated one when our ride home touched down. Killed almost all the platoon except us three. Other two died on the way back to base.”
“Sergeant Major…” said one of the leejes.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have any stories where everyone lived happily ever after?”
“Not many. But there are some. And I am indeed hoping this is one of them. If not for your sake, then it might as well be for mine, son.”
The trench that Second Team was following ended, intersecting with the main passage that led toward the gate. According to their schematics, they had to follow this wide passage— wide enough for mobile artillery and even heavy cargo sleds—for about twenty meters before ducking into another side passage on the opposite side. But in doing so, they’d be walking directly into a nest of entrenched zhee.
Poking his scout rifle around the corner, Captain Besson was rewarded with a feed from off the weapon’s barrel. The zhee had stacked mobile barriers all up the trench and had dug in, apparently anticipating an assault of this kind. There were no zhee between Second Team’s location and the trench they needed to reach—but the barriers started only about ten meters beyond that.
Besson fed the picture to everyone in Second Team.
For a moment, with everyone stacked against the wall, there was nothing but silence.
“Well…” said the sergeant major as he watched the feed. “That’s a sure enough way to get us killed.”
No one replied. And Captain Besson seemed to be on another channel. After a moment he came back.
“Negative on close air or fire missions. Seems the zhee are counterattacking the carriers. Also, the two companies that are going in on the main door are in their staging locations, but they can’t move until we engage the defenses around the door and buy them enough time to get close with breaching charges. If we don’t go in the next fifteen minutes, they’re going to be ordered to take the doors without overwatch support fire. And casualties will be much higher.”
“Well, sir,” remarked the sergeant major, “we ain’t going to be any position to help anyone if we have to make twenty meters over open ground while getting drilled dead on like ducks in a shootin’ gallery. I have no doubt they got snipers too, a ways back watching that passage. Just waitin’ to shoot poor old Davies right through the eyes. Heavy gunner is considered a zhee target of honor. Why, if we all get killed and they can get a hold of our bodies, they’ll make a meal of Davies’s liver like you ain’t never tasted. They are savages, but they can cook a touch.”
Pause.
“I hear you, Sergeant Major. But this is what we do.”
Which meant, to everyone in Second Team, that they were about to do something dangerous. Something like charge head-on into enemy fire, hoping someone might make it to the side passage. Hoping that side passage wasn’t mined with IEDs, or filled with more zhee waiting to kill.
“You are, unfortunately, right, sir,” crooned the sergeant major. “Well, boys, this is where we leej up and do all the things we ever dreamed of. Which is, to put not too fine a point on it, die gloriously and leave good-lookin’ corpses behind. Some of you are excepted from that last part. Sad that it has to be the donks bein’ the ones to do it, but who says you get to pick your death.
“Drop your rucks and shuck any excess gear here. You’re gonna need to move faster than you ever thought possible, despite how tired you might think you are. How many bangers we got left?”
A quick count revealed there were four.
“That’ll have to be enough then. Who’s got a good arm?”
Everyone agreed that Turnbull did.
“All right, Bul
l,” said Mak. “You are gonna lob, catty-corner, while I feed ’em to you. Then we all go for the rush.”
Captain Besson softly added a condition. “The win is, we get the forty-two up to the bunker.”
“Hey hey! Did you hear that, Sergeant Major?” laughed Davies. “I gotta make it no matter what.”
“So if Davies gets killed,” said the sergeant major, “see if you can grab the pig—I mean the forty-two. Sorry, Davies, but you will most likely die. Carryin’ that, you’re gonna move slow, son. But I will be sure to tell your mother that you were a saint and you died with her name on your lips, despite the obvious miscreant I suspect you to be.”
The legionnaires, including Captain Besson, shrugged out of their tactical rucks and shed any gear that would slow them down. One of them was whispering “twenty meters” over and over again until the sergeant major gently reminded him that they all understood.
“We got that, son. You’ll be fine. Things often turn out better than I suspect they will. You might not know it, but I am considered to be a bit of a pessimist by some.”
A moment later the captain gave the green light. There would be no special plan, no sneak attack, no help from another quarter. There was simply just this. A push forward into the face of the enemy with the odds stacked against you. Why? Because other legionnaires were depending on you to be there when it came hit time. Because you were the one percent of the one percent of the one percent. And occasionally that bill needed to be paid.
“Now,” whispered Captain Besson, his voice dry and hoarse.
Turnbull armed the first ear-popper and tossed it over the corner of the trench, down toward the emplacements. The sergeant handed him two more, deciding to save one for later, just in case. He called out “Last one” over the L-comm, then, “Go, go, go!”
Besson was out first. He’d barely turned the corner when he got hit right in the chest. A distant sniper, unaffected by the deafening bang and blinding flash, had known they’d charge directly from that point.
Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7) Page 23