“The troopers aren’t our people,” said Zavage.
“They came to Raemy-Ela to help us,” Osu answered.
“We didn’t ask them to,” said Stryker. “We don’t want them.”
“But we need the assist,” said Bronze.
“Have you forgotten what it is to be in the Legion?” Osu cried, his doubts gone now. “Honor! We tell ourselves that it’s our honor that makes us the best, and we are the best. We hold the line, and we don’t let our brothers and sisters down. Listen to me, sappers. This is what Arunsen and I were going to tell you if we’d made it to the rendezvous. We are more than the Legion now. The 27th Independent Field Squadron has been wiped out. And our brothers and sisters back there under fire – they’re no longer just Ravens either. We’re something more. Something new. An idea that matters in a galaxy collapsing around us. We are Chimera Company now. Arunsen. Hjon. That Muryani trooper and the others. They irritate the hell out of me, but they’re one with us. Are you willing to abandon them, Stryker?”
“No, Sergeant.” Three dots became four once more. “We hold the line.” The dots turned green.
Osu led them north.
VETCH ARUNSEN
“Fire!”
At Vetch’s command, the suppression fire guns on either side of his position lit up, throwing lines of segmented metal slugs into the zone in front of the dead Saruswine. Operating like machine guns in this firing mode, the SFGs were firing blind, but screams pierced the icy drumbeat of the rain as they began to register hits.
A lone rebel charged past the dead Saruswine, firing blaster bolts into the Militia position. Behind Vetch one of the juvenile beasts squealed in pain and rage.
Vetch made the intercept, swinging his hammer horizontally to smash into the enemy’s chest.
The rebel was knocked backward by the heavy blow, staggered back a few steps and landed on the Saruswine’s corpse, gasping for air that would never come. Darant put him out of his misery with a shot through the head.
To either side, he could see from the pattern of chaos whipped into the slush that the two SFGs had walked their firing cones out from the center to the flanks.
It was time to send in the cavalry.
A fusillade of blaster fire flailed the Militia position, sending him diving into the ground. He heard a groan to one flank and angry cries from the Saruswine. Darant seemed okay.
Vetch grabbed his blaster rifle one-handed and sent some bolts into the bad guys to give them something to think about.
“Enthree,” he said over the radio.
He never finished his order because he once again threw himself into the freezing slush as a column of three Saruswine leaped over their dead elder and the two humans sheltering by its corpse. The animals bounded into the enemy.
“Enthree, you were supposed to wait for my signal!”
“Yes, Sergeant,” replied the alien. “So were the Saruswine.”
The three animals chattered angrily with their long rows of back teeth, setting Vetch’s on edge. The hinged fronts to their jaws with the cutting teeth at the front snapped open and closed, biting into human flesh.
Rebel blaster fire poured into the Saruswine, but the biting – and the screams – kept coming. The beasts’ thick shaggy fur drenched with rain – Vetch realized it must be providing some protection against blaster bolts.
And still the rebels advanced out of the rain, but their steps seemed more hesitant now.
Darant fired a burst of segmented rounds and, nearby, rebels went to ground, sending return fire ripping into the ruined corpses of the adult Saruswine and the soldier whose chest Vetch had shattered.
He heard firing from behind and swiveled his head to look. Lily and Sward were occupied with something, but the rain choked his vision and he couldn’t see what.
Then he was hugging the ground as a furious volley of bolts sought him. The wet ground sizzled with blaster fire, and he felt the scalding heat of a near miss on his face, which he’d tilted to avoid drowning in the slush.
Water sprayed over him as grenades landed nearby, shrapnel hitting his side. He tensed, expecting the warning vibration of his chainmail’s breach detection system, but it stayed firm.
“Darant, you okay?” he asked over the radio, but his headset was making weird noises he didn’t recognize. Probably short circuiting or rebooting with all the abuse of being shoved into freezing water.
“Darant, you alive?” he shouted over the driving rain and the din of battle.
“I’m good,” Darant shouted back. “Comms are out. My headset’s rebooting for some reason.”
A fresh flurry of blaster bolts flew over their heads. This time headed in the direction of the rebels.
Enthree emerged from the rear, tottering upright on two hind legs and firing blasters in each of her other... well, they weren’t exactly hands but there were four of the hoof-like appendages, and they were pumping blaster fire at the rebels. She looked like a demonic sea creature made to walk on land for the first time, and forced to wear high heels just to add to the challenge.
No matter that she looked so ungainly; she was shooting accurately.
“My comms have failed,” she announced, her voice slicing through the din. “So I thought, ‘What would the sergeant be saying if he could talk to me?’ And I imagined he would be saying, something like, ‘Reserves are meant to be used, you big dumb insect. Get your hairy alien carcass into the fight.’”
“I would never utter such racist words,” Vetch protested as he and Darant added their fire downrange. “Shame on you for suggesting such a thing. Now, get your enormous alien head down before a rebel blasts the ugly thing off.”
The Muryani splashed down beside them.
“Was that humor, Sergeant?” she inquired. “I think it was possibly amusing, but I find the distinction between cynicism, irony, and insults so difficult to unravel with your species.”
“Shut up, you pair of buffoons,” Darant snapped. “The enemy’s turning. Look!”
Vetch tried looking. He squeezed his eyeballs hard but he couldn’t see anything through the rain. Have to face it, old man, he told himself. You need to get your eyes checked out.
“Darant’s right,” said Enthree, who had eyesight to rival a high-spec sensor drone. “They’re crawling away.”
Blaster fire converged on her head, missing her by a hairsbreadth. Enthree decided she’d seen enough and ducked down behind the cover of the Saruswine’s enormous corpse.
Another burst of rebel blaster bolts crackled to their rear. Lily and Sward returned fire.
There was nothing for it. He’d just have to trust their rear was secure because this was the moment to press the enemy.
“Darant, cover us. Enthree, ready to close assault?”
“Always, Sergeant.”
“Good bug. Here we go.”
Vetch took two steps back while Darant gave a long burst on auto to make the rebels duck for cover. When the trooper’s rifle ceased its chatter, Vetch leaped over the corpse of the Saruswine, war hammer high and screaming the Militia battle cry: “Liberty or death!”
Enthree was close by, bellowing the same words. Having dropped two blasters to redeploy her mid-limbs for locomotion, she covered the ground at a fair clip.
Given the amount of firepower the troopers had poured into their front, Vetch was surprised to see so few rebels, alive or dead. He heard nervous shouting in the distance, and a hesitant blaster bolt fired his way that steamed in the icy water at his feet.
He ceased his battle cry.
“I think they’ve gone, Enthree,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “Contact!”
Vetch hurried over to the vague bulk to his left that could only be his Muryani comrade. She was firing blasters with her forelimbs. Her mid-limbs were punching horizontally, which meant she had probably switched to short swords, but all Vetch could really see was the pounding sheets of rain.
A squelch to his right alerted him to a rebel ad
vancing on Enthree.
The splash of his own feet must have alerted the Cora’s World soldier because they swung their rifle Vetch’s way.
The rebel released an aggressive feminine scream and shot him from the hip as she ducked and rolled out of his way.
The bolt hit Vetch in the upper thigh but his mail took the worst of the blast. He screamed in pain nonetheless as he ignored the wound and brought the hammer down onto the woman’s shoulder as she dove past. The blow pulverized the bone, and she screamed as she thudded along the ground on her unwounded shoulder.
Vetch hooked his hammer up in readiness for another downward swing, but the rebel rolled back a little and lifted the muzzle of her rifle out of the water.
He wasn’t going to make his swing in time. Dropping the heavy war hammer in desperation, he sidestepped away, forcing the rebel to shift her position despite the agony evident in her groaning.
Abandoning Lucerne didn’t leave him defenseless. He tried to draw his knife but stumbled on the smooth ice hidden beneath the water and went down.
This is it, he thought. I’ve done you proud, Ma.
But the rebel didn’t fire the killing shots.
Vetch pushed himself back upright. Enthree had butchered the rebel, the Muryani’s sword blades dripping with fresh human blood.
“Retreat! Retreat!”
The cry spread through the rebel soldiers.
“We got ’em,” Vetch roared at Enthree. “We didn’t need the Legion cowards.”
“Retreat! Retreat! Fall back on the tank.”
“The tank…?” Vetch echoed. “That doesn’t sound good.”
One of the young Saruswine sauntered back from the enemy position, giving Vetch and Enthree a sniff. The animal seemed reassured by the familiar smell and calmly walked to the rear, uncaring of flanks matted with its own blood and the absence of its fellows.
The beast had proven itself surprisingly valuable in this no-visibility battle where your enemies appeared without warning out of the rain. But a creature of flesh, blood, and fur was no match for a tank. And given the power of the heavy blaster that had ripped straight through the adult Saruswine, they were up against a serious main battle tank.
“Time to go!” he bellowed at his troopers, limping back and hoping enough of the Saruswine had survived for them to mount up and get the hell out of there before the tank blew them into atoms.
Suddenly, the dark skies resonated with light.
Vetch assumed the flash meant the main gun had fired again, but there was no bolt of induced plasma. Instead, his eardrums were assaulted by the boom of a furious explosion. Then he felt himself picked up as if by giant hands and thrown headfirst into the corpse of the giant adult Saruswine.
Dazed, all he could do for the next few moments was to lie there as his skull echoed with the aftershocks of the explosion.
But then the fog cleared a little from his brain, and words formed on his lips.
“What the hell was that?”
VETCH ARUNSEN
“Raven One, this is Bandit 1-5-6. How copy?”
Vetch picked himself up and shook his head, convinced he was hearing voices in his broken headset.
“Raven One, do you copy?”
The voice sounded real. It sounded like that no-good Legion sergeant. Perhaps Vetch was in hell.
The horror of spending an eternity stuck with the jack-heads shocked some sense back into him.
This wasn’t hell. It was really happening.
“I can hear you, jack. What’s your ugly voice doing on my squad channel?”
“Saving your prison rat ass, Raven One. Over.”
The explosion... was that the jacks? To the north he heard the legionaries’ bike cannons spitting bolts. “In plain language, Sybutu. What have you done?”
“Scratch one main battle tank. An HRT-7 Citadel. Engaging supporting infantry now.”
A citadel? That was a powerful machine of war, designed for siege operations and heavy assault. The Cora’s mob must want to keep a tight hold on Raemy-Ela.
“Sybutu, how many more citadels do you see?”
“None. We’ve encountered one tank with infantry escort. Also some enraged animals. One looked like it was on its way to you. Over.”
The bike cannons ceased firing, the noise of battle quickly swallowed up by the endless drumbeat of the elements. Vetch realized the SFGs had fallen silent too. He thought he heard the groans of the wounded out in the gloom, but that could have been his imagination.
“The enemy has scattered,” said Sybutu. “For now. Recommend you keep your position. We have your location through your radio node. Remember, we’re the ones on hoverbikes. Try not to shoot us or hit us with your club. Over.”
“It’s a war hammer,” Vetch replied indignantly. “But I’ll try not to smash you with it. You hear that, everyone? Don’t shoot the mounted heroes. Call out your status and scrub up before they get here.”
VETCH ARUNSEN
“Didn’t think you were gonna make an appearance.” Vetch shook Sybutu’s hand.
The legionary shifted uneasily on his bike. “We’re all Chimera Company now,” he said defensively.
Now that was interesting. The battle zone was secure for now, the four jacks on their steeds like knights of ancient Earth on horseback, lords of all they surveyed as the peasant Militia levy readied the beasts of burden for the journey.
But that isn’t the truth, is it, Osu boy? The only reason you’re invoking Yazzie’s idea of Chimera Company is desperation.
On the other hand, the way those four had blown up a tank and hacked the Militia comms was impressive. And Major Yazzie would have the Ravens lined up for the firing squad if Vetch didn’t escort this jack to the capital.
Vetch sighed. He wasn’t being honest, either... with himself. Truth was, he was as desperate as Sybutu.
“Okay,” he said, breaking an uneasy silence. “We’re all Chimera Company now, although we ought to actually tell my people that before they mutiny. And since we’re all family now, I have wounded. Can you spare a ride on the back of your bikes?”
“I’d prefer not to,” Sybutu replied. “The weight would rob the bikes of their agility. Can’t you sit your people on those animals of yours?”
“The Saruswine are among my wounded. I’ve got three adults and one juvenile left. They’re tough and they’re going to be very useful, but they need a chance to heal first.”
“How many troopers need transportation?”
“Just me,” said Vetch. “I’ve been shot in the leg.”
The legionary’s long and painful sigh was audible even through the rain. “Very well. You ride pillion with me, Arunsen.”
Neat. Vetch tapped his headset to transmit. “Rose of Rho-Torkis, this is Viking Rover requesting assistance, over.”
“Pillock,” said Lily, but she was laughing at his new call signs. “What do you need, Vetch?”
Painkillers, brandy, and a warm rub from a hot woman. He grimaced. If only. The truth was his leg had stiffened up and he felt rooted to the spot. Worse, his head was still ringing from the blast that had taken out the tank. In his current state, organizing the withdrawal of his troopers seemed as impossibly complicated as plotting hyperspace jump routes while simultaneously walking a tightrope over a bottomless gorge and reciting badly written poetry. Backwards. He needed Lily to take over.
Suddenly, a battle cry rent the air. “Purity! Purity! Death to the other!”
Vetch collapsed to the icy wet ground, blaster bolts lashing the space where he’d been an instant before.
Darant was hit.
One of the legionaries, too; the jack tumbled from his bike.
Vetch couldn’t stand, couldn’t swing Lucerne. So he dropped the hammer and rolled through the slush toward the enemy.
There were three of the rebels. They’d extended the muzzle blades from their rifles and were stabbing at their foes. One was thrusting down at Vetch, but he hadn’t got his weight behind it prope
rly, having expected to stick opponents who weren’t already on the ground.
“Rookie mistake,” Vetch told him, shifting to the side and reaching up to grab the rebel’s forearm.
Over the rebel went, following his rifle to splash facedown into the ground.
Vetch went for his own gun, thinking it was still strapped to his back, but it wasn’t there! He’d lost it in the slush.
Flashing limbs, blaster bolts, and blades of metal: the confusion of melee was going on all around, but Vetch had eyes only for the rebel blaster lying nearby in the wet snow.
So did the rebel. And he was closer.
Who would get there first?
They both scrambled for the rifle, but before either could reach it, Enthree kicked it away and skewered the rebel with a short sword held in each mid-limb.
“Thanks,” said Vetch and he went for the rebel’s blaster on hands and knees. “I think I’ll grow an extra pair of limbs next time I’m on leave. They look really handy.”
He shook water off the rebel’s blaster and retracted the muzzle blades. Now the weapon could fire again, but there were no more targets.
Not at the moment, at any rate. All three rebels lay dead.
Likely they’d been three stragglers lost in the rain who chose the wrong direction to stumble away. Bad luck for them...
“Stay alert!” said Lily. “There could be more.”
And bad luck for Darant. The trooper was holding his left arm, inspecting the wound. At least he was on his feet.
“How bad?” Vetch asked him.
“Hurts like hell. Melted part of my glove into my flesh.”
“Your glove? I thought you were hit in the arm.”
“I was.” Darant shook his head sadly. “That bolt fizzled. Misfire. It was the next one. Hit me in the hand. And the left hand, man. Why did it have to be the left?”
Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set Page 21