The rebels looked at her, incredulous.
“Do you think maybe he might be a Militia officer?” she asked.
The rebel soldiers stampeded for the private room. All except a pair, who stood with their tankards at the bar.
“That’s a very convenient explanation, girl,” said one, not bothering to turn and look at her.
“Yeah, let me see if I can figure this out,” said his friend. “There’s a barbarian shadowing you who looks as if his IQ count is lower than the number of my toes. And I just lost half my toes due to frostbite. He looks the embodiment of a serving Militia NCO, which would make you his officer.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, taking two steps forward.
“Maybe you fooled Fitchy and Grunvalt,” said the first rebel. “They’re late reporting in. But you don’t fool us.”
Both the rebels went for their pistols. But Lily was quicker, closing the distance at a sprint and throwing rapid-fire punches to their throats.
“Do I really look so unintelligent?” Vetch asked as he grabbed the men’s heads by their hair and rammed them against the bar until they went limp.
“Yes,” replied Lily. “You see? This is a more merciful way of ditching Shen. You should be more creative in your thinking.” She frowned at Vetch. “Is that really necessary?”
Arunsen was working efficiently through the downed rebels’ jackets, pilfering anything of value. “Old habits die hard,” he said.
“I forget sometimes that you were a prison recruit.”
A Littorane barkeeper appeared, carrying a crate of beer bottles. If he noticed the change in clientele, or the two rebels slumped on the other side of the bar, he made no sign.
“Excuse me,” Lily asked. “Do you know if our pies have been delivered yet?”
“Yes,” hissed the Littorane. “Pies to stables. Delivered. Done.”
“Thank you.”
Vetch placed a handful of credit chips on the bar. “For excellent service,” he explained.
Within two seconds, the barkeeper had swept the chips out of sight.
“You go now?”
“Yeah. Soldiers. We don’t like them.”
“I agree. Soldiers no good. Rude. Poor tips. And guns! In Thousand Sorrows. It is an outrage.”
“So true,” Lily added. “Why, there are two of them passed out at my feet. Disgusting.”
She gave a circular bow to the Littorane, as she’d learned to do in her previous posting here.
He was astonished that she knew their customs so well and gave an exaggerated bow in reply.
The formal farewell concluded, she hurried out of the bar with Vetch in tow.
“Oh, stop seething,” she told him on the way. “Spit it out, Vetch.”
“You call that being merciful?” he accused.
“Sure. Julius will probably soil his pants, but he’ll be fine. The man can smooth talk his way out of most things and has loyalty only to his own comfort. The rebels will probably recruit him. And if not…” She shrugged. “Do you really care?”
Leaving Vetch to digest that, she pushed through the door to the covered walkway and walked straight into an ambush.
VETCH ARUNSEN
“Sybutu!” boomed Vetch, hoping his voice would travel to sharp Zhoogene ears in the barn. “What is the meaning of this?”
The ambushers were in partial cover and further concealed by tattered white cloaks. They could be anyone, but he’d counted three blasters and the cannon of one hoverbike aimed at the doorway. Yeah, Vetch felt his money was securely placed on these being the jacks.
“Good,” said Lily, still walking toward the stables. “Saves us the bother of picking you up.”
“There are rebels in town,” said Sybutu, breaking cover and pulling back his hood.
“We know,” said Vetch. “Most of them are inside having a beer. Why not join them? See if they can guess who you are.”
“I don’t think so,” said the legionary. “We killed two rebels half an hour ago.”
That stopped Lily in her tracks. “Oh, you stupid dumb jacks!” she cried.
Vetch clenched his hands, wishing he was crushing one of the stupid man’s vital organs.
“You can’t help yourselves, can you?” she berated Sybutu. “I mean, why? Why would you do that?”
“Because they’d been tracking you and your Zhoogene friend, and were about to bring you in.”
She took a step back. “Really?”
“Really,” said another jack. Vetch remembered his name was Bronze. “They had the drop on you, and you had no idea.”
“There’s irony for you,” said a Zhoogene voice.
It was Sward who’d taken a firing position just outside the barn. Rynter was with him.
“Our green friend,” said Vetch, “is probably the finest sniper on Rho-Torkis. Unless anyone is in the mood for a shootout, I suggest we lower our weapons and make a strategic relocation to the hell outta here.”
“The lieutenant?” asked Sward. “What’s his status?”
“He’s more or less alive,” Vetch answered. “Probably. If anyone wants to check on Lieutenant Shen, feel free to go back in there. Say hi to the Cora’s World soldiers from us. Everyone else, saddle up and ride out. We’ll meet up 10k east of town at coordinates I’ll agree with your sergeant. Get there and everything will be explained to everybody. I swear.”
“Do it!” said Sybutu, motioning to his team to mount their bikes.
They obeyed like the jack-headed automatons they were, but while Vetch was jogging across to the barn, he overheard an unexpected hint that not all legionaries were mindless drones.
“What are we doing, boss?” hissed one of them. “We can’t be lumbered with those pirates. May the colonel’s ashes recombine and kick you in your hairy butt if that’s what you’re intending.”
Vetch didn’t wait for the answer.
He’d find out soon enough.
OSU SYBUTU
Seven klicks east of Raemy-Ela and heavy rain was lashing the four legionaries on their hoverbikes, turning their cloaks into fast-flowing rivulets and whipping the upper layers of snow into deep slush. It was the late afternoon of what had been a sunny day, but now the skies were dark with anger. Osu had his glacier goggles raised up on his head, but he could see little beyond the curtain of raindrops dripping off the front of his hood.
The slush beneath the bikes looked a surefire way to both slip over and lose your feet through frostbite, but cruising as they were, about a foot off the ground, they made good progress on the rendezvous coordinates he’d hastily agreed with Arunsen. They had to put their trust in the forward terrain sensors and autopilots, but the bikes had proven their worth.
The Militia party was another matter. The troopers were mounted on huge shaggy beasts who’d plodded surefooted across sheet ice, happily munching on the huge canisters of feed pellets carried on their backs. They slithered and squeaked in distress at this new terrain.
Arunsen’s troopers had fallen behind, but Osu could still hear the angry cries of the Saruswine in the distance. They sounded like the squeak of a rat de-tuned by several octaves; it made his skin crawl.
Osu wasn’t the only one.
“I don’t like it,” grumbled Stryker over the radio after the loudest chorus of Saruswine cries yet. “I don’t like those creatures following us. As for the animals they’re mounted on, they give me the creeps too.”
Despite his attempt at humor, Osu could tell the sapper was serious. Mutinous, even. Better he kicks off now than later. They were just three klicks from the rendezvous, and this time Osu was determined to make it. He’d come to accept that with Urdizine out of action – and hopefully keeping his green head down in Raemy-Ela for them to retrieve at a later date – he needed Militia help to give them the best chance of completing their mission.
His team, though? They weren’t so convinced. None of them. Better to lance that particular boil within the next three klicks. And who better to do so than
Tavarius Stryker, a SOTL who was never shy about telling you to your face exactly what he thought.
“None of us have forgotten what the Militia did to us on Irisur,” said the disgruntled sapper.
“Do you think I have?” snapped Osu. He cursed inwardly. Got to keep my tone measured. They’re supposed to look up to me as their leader. “I know they look like degenerate bandits, but they’re useful. Frankly, some of them disgust me, but I think that Viking sergeant of theirs has a spark of honor, and he’s under orders from the officer who runs Fort Iceni. They’ll help us get to Bresca-Brevae.”
“Possibly that detachment riding the shaggy beasts through the rain and snow isn’t so bad,” said Stryker reasonably. “But the Militia as a whole is rotten and can never be trusted. You know that.”
“Hey!” snapped Bronze. “Drop it! If the Sarge says we use these Militia clowns, then that’s what we do. End of.”
“It’s okay, Bronze,” said Osu. “Give him a chance to speak his mind.”
“Speak his mind?” Stryker roared. “Has everyone here forgotten that the Militia is responsible for the LT’s death? Why don’t you ask Lieutenant Szenti to speak his mind, Zy Pel?”
Osu gripped his bike’s handlebars so hard, he threatened to snap them off. He tried to keep his cool enough not to punch out the loudmouth idiot, but it wasn’t working. Osu was about to explode. No one felt the loss of Lieutenant Szenti more keenly than him. How dare Stryker imagine he had a monopoly on grief?
Through the rush of hot blood, and the drumming of the rain, the sound of shouting reached Osu’s ears.
“Quiet,” he told his team, and listened.
He missed his legionary’s helm. Its directional auditory sensors meant he could pick out sounds from the background noise and locate their position. Swaddled as he was in scarf, hat, and dripping cloak, the shouts diffused through the downpour. They could have come from any direction, but he was sure of their nature. The initial shouts had been of surprise, but they had rapidly shifted first to warnings and then to orders being issued.
“They’re to our north,” said Zavage. “Human, I think.”
Osu’s mind shifted into a different gear. The Militia was to the west. Whoever they had heard would not be friendly.
“Tactical formation,” said Osu. “Form on me and orient due north.”
Tactical formation. With their numbers reduced to four bikes, it was a hopelessly optimistic description, but they had pre-programmed the formation into their bike computers, which rapidly organized them, despite the limited visibility.
Zavage was twenty feet away to Osu’s right. Bronze and Stryker took the flanks, another twenty feet out to the side and twenty to the rear. Their awareness of what was behind them would be minimal. They just had to hope Zavage’s ears had them pointing the right way.
Through the rain curtain, Zavage drifted in and out of vague visibility; the other two had completely vanished from Osu’s sight. He relied on the four red dots showing in his bike display’s terrain grid as they took up position. Four? The emptiness of the formation made his breath catch in his throat. He had set off from Camp Faxian as part of a Legion operation on this planet that counted thousands of personnel. To the best of his knowledge, only four effectives remained on Rho-Torkis.
Osu tried the radio channel he’d hastily set up with Arunsen, but the Viking didn’t respond. Damn! Should’ve given Zavage the problem of how to arrange comms with the Militia. He was the squadron’s signal genius after all.
The dots turned green, the bikes registering that they were now in the pre-programmed formation.
Just four legionaries.
Pride chased away Osu’s doubts. It wouldn’t have mattered even if there was just one of them. They were Legion. They would hold the line no matter what.
The order to advance was on his lips when the world was interrupted by a horizontal flash of lightning and a scream of brutalized air, as a heavy blaster bolt hit a point a few hundred yards to the west, drawing a howl of inhuman pain from what Osu guessed was a Saruswine.
A fusillade of much smaller bolts followed, their energy severely depleted by the driving rain by the time they reached their targets. That first shot, though, had come from a seriously big gun, not a handheld blaster rifle.
What were they up against? Time to find out.
While he was painting a route in the bike computer that he hoped would take the flank of that big gun, the map screen changed. Four dots became three; green changed to red.
Stryker had dropped out.
VETCH ARUNSEN
Blaster bolts sizzled through the rain over the heads of Vetch’s troopers, instantly vaporizing the raindrops as they passed. In theory the impact energy would be reduced, but with enough hits, even the armored troopers lying prone in the slush would die.
But no one was dead yet. The enemy fire had mostly gone high overhead, which suggested they were relying on visual targeting, and weren’t sure what they were facing or where.
Good.
After a quick check on the channel he had shared with the legionaries – naturally, the jack-heads weren’t listening – Vetch rose from the freezing slush and jogged over to the Saruswine who’d taken the heavy blaster bolt in the belly.
The entry wound was two fists wide. The bolt had burned straight through the bulky animal before blowing a deep trench out of the ground, leaving an exit wound that was... messy.
It was a lucky shot.
Though not for the beast.
The Saruswine was one of the docile adults, but it wasn’t calm now, thrashing its head in agony. With its bulbous eyes mounted on each side of its huge head, its gaze never seemed to leave Vetch.
He rested the muzzle of his blaster on its head. “Rest now,” he said and put it out of its misery.
A fresh volley of blaster bolts whined over their heads. Its origin seemed a little closer, but at least the heavy-caliber blaster fire had ceased.
“The gunners don’t want to hit their own soldiers,” Vetch said to no one in particular. Then he took charge.
“Hold your fire and listen up,” he said over the squad channel. “I expect the enemy to pin our front while they probe our flanks. Drop your blasters and switch to slug throwers. Darant, you’re with me by this dead Saruswine. Green Fish, Meatbolt, set up an SFG twenty yards to my left. Rynter, Deep Tone, SFG twenty yards to my right. Lily and Sward, watch our rear. Enthree, you’re in reserve. When I give the signal, Enthree, you’re to stampede the juvenile Saruswine through the enemy ranks.”
“Stampede, Sergeant? I don’t think they do that.”
“Then think of something, Trooper! I’ve ridden on them, and I can tell you for a fact that they’re excitable. Bite their asses. Read them Muryani poetry. I don’t care, but I want them running at full pelt when I tell you. Got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Vetch hesitated a moment. He’d forgotten he wasn’t officially a sergeant. So, it seemed, had everybody else because they were racing to follow his orders before the enemy overran their position.
Two dark humanoid forms loomed out of the rain toward the dead Saruswine, slithering through the slush.
“Here they come,” Vetch growled into the radio and squeezed off three bolts with his light blaster, having forgotten to follow his own orders to switch to a slug thrower. The two soldiers screamed in pain, splashing down to the ground, but one got a shot off first.
Darant fired back, briefly. Wildly too. Vetch looked over to see his comrade jerking in pain, his chainmail glowing with the energy from the blaster bolt he’d taken. But it quickly dissipated into the wet ground.
“I’m all right,” said the trooper shakily. “Problem is, they might be too.”
Vetch fired three shots from his rifle into the downed enemy. One twitched, and then both were still.
“Anyone else sighted the enemy?” Vetch asked his squad.
“Negative.”
“I see only rain.”
“Nad
a.”
“Nothing.”
“Now they know where we are,” said Vetch, “they’ll be back in force. Stay alert.”
He checked the legionary channel again and got zilch for his trouble. Suddenly, worried that they’d shot their allies by mistake, he scrambled across the Saruswine corpse for a closer look at the downed soldiers.
They were Cora’s World regulars. He didn’t recognize the unit insignia, but it was different from the rebels he’d seen in Raemy-Ela.
“Hey, Boss,” called Meatbolt as Vetch made his way back to Darant. “When are the heroic Legion reserves going to rescue our asses?”
Vetch raised his hand to the selector switch on his headset, intending to try the channel to Sybutu once more. He thought better of it. He’d only be wasting his time.
“Forget those damned cowards,” he said bitterly. “If they were coming, they’d be here by now. We’re on our own.”
“I see something,” said Green Fish.
“Me too,” confirmed Rynter.
“Here they come,” said Vetch. “SFG teams, on my command, left gun aim low. Right high. Aim for the center and then sweep your fire cone to the flanks so Enthree can do her cavalry charge. Ready...”
He’d switched his blaster for his war hammer. Lucerne was ready and eager, his hold firm on her high-grip haft despite the drenching. They didn’t need the Legion. They were Militia and they were ready.
OSU SYBUTU
“That’s serious opposition,” said Stryker after the heavy blaster gun had fired. “If they’re to the north, then we should head south to get away. If the Militia wants to assist, they can do so as our sacrificial rearguard.”
Osu hesitated on the cusp of ordering them forward. Yes, the Legion’s honor said they shouldn’t abandon the Militia. But the Legion had another reputation: one for getting the job done, no matter what. Colonel Malix had ordered him to deliver a message in person to a contact in Bresca-Brevae. There were four of them left. If he took them to meet these rebels head on – assuming they were indeed rebels – then four could become zero within moments, and then who would deliver the message?
Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set Page 20