That was a distressing thought, but he didn’t know what to do besides go about his daily duties.
“2nd Platoon! I want weapons cleaned, the barrack room spotless, and the parade ground swept. Kavildars, you know what to do. Get to it!”
He could see how uneasy many of them were. To have one of their own executed before them had to have an effect, and still they went about their work.
“An eye for an eye, where does it ever stop?” King asked.
“Does it?” Stone replied.
The day went slowly as King kept an eye over his shoulder at all times. He felt like he might get a Firanwar in his back at any time. The troops went about their duties, but they were restless and angry, and he could feel it. The day soon came to an end and seemingly without incident. As he sat down in the mess, he breathed a sigh of relief they’d got through it.
“You see, Lieutenant, horrid work today, but necessary. Perhaps now we can return to the way things were.” Getz leaned in beside him before going to sit with the Colonel. He was relieved indeed, but he had a niggling feeling in the back of his mind. He tried to put it aside and took a sip of his drink.
“Lieutenant, come and join us,” one of the other lieutenants called out.
He took a seat at their table and joined in a game of cards. Time seemed to fly by now he had something to focus his mind on. An hour had passed when there was a flurry of noise as a soldier ran into the mess. The room erupted into a hive of activity, but before King could work out what was going on, those at the front had rushed out after the messenger. He had no idea what was going on, but he followed on after half of those in the room had rushed outside. They carried on to the drill square and past the barrack rooms to a stores area where they found a sergeant standing beside the bloody body of a Rhepoy.
Sergeant Stone knelt down beside the body and rolled it over, revealing a gaping wound at the collar where blood had gushed out. King recognised him instantly.
“Sandu,” Stone said sadly.
King was pushed aside as the Colonel fought his way through them to see for himself. He looked genuinely saddened by the death of the newly promoted Kavildar who’d so recently saved his life. He was shaking a little with anger, but suppressed it as best he could.
“Light this place up. I want the Regiment formed up.”
“Now, Sir?”
“Now, Captain Getz!”
“Yes…yes, Sir.” Getz looked to the other officers. They knew what they had to do.
“Form them up. Get to it!”
King stayed for a few seconds longer as he and Stone paid their respects to Sandu, as did the Colonel. It was that small group who’d shared such a desperate struggle to survive.
“What will you do to them?” King asked the Colonel rather informally.
“The only thing I can,” he replied quietly.
Chapter 6
There was complete silence while the Regiment waited for Rossman to speak. Some looked exhausted, others angry. Floodlights around the facility had lit up the drill square like it was a sports match. Rossman seemed to be contemplating his words for some time, as if juggling with what to do; however certain he seemed when he gave the order. Finally, he gave his address.
“Murder has taken place. Kavildar Sandu, an honourable and honest fighting man who’d given everything to this Regiment. There was nothing Sandu would not do to protect any one of us, Prian and Human alike! He embodied all that was good about the Prian people and the Rhepoy regiments, even the Empire itself. And for that dedication to his duty, he has been murdered for it. A cancer exists in this Regiment. One I and others have fought to control. The Rhepoy regiments can only exist while there is trust and respect for one another. But that trust has been lost. We may never know who committed this vile act against a model soldier. But his memory will live on along with that of the 43rd Native Infantry. For today is the end of this once great Regiment. I will not see it run into the ground. I will not see brother fight brother. I am hereby disbanding the Regiment. You are to hand in your weapons and other issued equipment to the quartermaster. Any who wish to volunteer for service elsewhere may make their intention known at the gate. For those who have served this regiment with honour, I salute you. Fall out, and hand in your weapons. That’ll be all.”
Nobody moved. They appeared stunned by what they were hearing.
“We don’t have to listen to them. We don’t have to fight for them,” a voice called out.
“Silence!” Sergeant Stone roared.
But they continued, and not even in their own language. They wanted the Colonel to hear it.
“They don’t care about us. We’re slaves to them. Now they would take our jobs and everything we have!”
“Silence that Rhepoy!” Rossman yelled.
Stone pushed his way through to reach the insubordinate one.
“Baclu?”
“I’m not fighting for your Colonel and your Empire anymore. You have betrayed us. You hear me? They have betrayed us!”
Stone looked to the Colonel for what to do.
“Detain that man!”
Stone grabbed him. He tried to resist, but Stone smashed his elbow into his face and ripped the rifle from his hands. He pulled Baclu away, but he struggled all the way until he got a hand on his Firanwar and drew it out. Stone let go and took a few steps back as he took aim at the disgraced Kavildar with his rifle.
“Put it down!”
“No, and you cannot make me!”
Stone lowered his rifle and fired a single shot into the leg. Baclu cried out in pain as he fell to one knee, dropping his blade. Stone grabbed his collar and continued to haul him away, until he was met with a wall of Rhepoys.
“Stand aside!”
“They’ll kill us all!” Baclu yelled.
Several of them edge forward as if to help him, but Stone lifted his rifle to take aim at them. It did no favours to help their cause. One reached for him, and then another. He lifted the muzzle to fire a warning shot, but as he squeezed the trigger, a Firanwar cut down against his arm. The weapon lowered as he felt the pain surge though his body, but the shot went into the chest of the Rhepoy before him. The soldier looked at the wound for a moment as all were silenced. He collapsed down dead.
“Fight for your lives, or they’ll kill us all!” Baclu screamed.
Stone turned the rifle on him.
“Silence!”
But another Rhepoy grabbed him from behind and pulled him to the ground.
“Sergeant!” King rushed forward to help with a Marine by his side.
Two more shots rang out as they pushed their way through. Confused and muffled shouts and cries rang out all around as King reached the Sergeant. He’d killed two more and was back on one knee. More shots struck the crowd, but this was no unarmed mob. It was a well-equipped Sepoy regiment. Baclu was on his feet once again and called out something they didn’t understand, but from his angry tone and furious expression it was not good.
“We’ve got to get out of here, now!” King grabbed Stone and hauled him to his feet.
“What are you doing?”
King pointed back to the podium where the Colonel had been standing to see a Rhepoy on it. A Marine Guard was being thrown from it into the crowd. They spotted the Colonel withdrawing as his guards tried to defend him but were being swamped. Gunfire rang out all around. The Aquillas were a potent and versatile weapon, but they couldn’t make up for the odds stacked against them as the Regiment began to turn on them. King noticed one Marine fire and kill three Rhepoys before he was shot through by multiple shots from the Edgelands, and finally cut down across the neck with a Firanwar.
A shot rang out in front of him, and a Rhepoy fell at his feet. Sergeant Stone had fired the shot.
“We have to move, now!” Stone shouted.
He was hurt and bleeding once more, but he shrugged it off as he pulled the Lieutenant on. Gunshots rang out, but the war cries of the Rhepoys dominated the scene. They were hungry for bl
ood, the blood of their masters. Or that’s how they saw it. King was stunned by it all, but he kept moving as they rushed back to the headquarters building. Their walled fort and defences counted for nothing now, as the threat was internal. They could see the Colonel be rushed inside as they closed the distance, and a horde of Rhepoys emerged from an alley. They both ducked down.
In the excitement of it all the Rhepoys were not taking aim, not that they were the best of shots anyway. That was the only bit of good news they had to go by as they rushed on. Stone and King fired the odd shot back, but they knew there was little could be done to supress such a force.
“Run!” Stone shouted as they sprinted the final twenty metres.
“Come on!” Getz held the doorway and covered them. Another officer ahead of them was struck on the back of the head and killed instantly. They kept running as shots zipped past them and finally burst through the doorway. Getz closed the doors and sealed the lock shut.
“What just happened?” King asked.
As Getz turned back to them, they could see he was shot in the stomach. He hobbled back towards them as Stone propped him up and applied pressure to the wound.
“The whole Regiment has turned on us. It’s mutiny,” he winced.
There was a crash against the doors as the mob reached it and tried to batter their way through.
“What do they want from us?”
“Our lives,” replied Stone.
“What?” King asked in disbelief.
“The Rhepoys, they’re not Rhepoys anymore. They’re angry Prians, just like those who lay in ambush for us,” replied Getz.
“Yeah, these are trained and equipped by the Empire, and already inside our walls,” added Stone.
They climbed the stairs to the next level. Several other Marines rushed past them as they went to firing positions, but there were not many of them. They reached an open doorway to a briefing room. The Colonel was inside. He had a comms receiver in his hand and was yelling down it. A Marine entered the room with an armful of Aquillas and quickly handed them out.
“Get us evacced now!” He put it down, “Boats are thirty minutes out if we’re lucky,” he sighed.
They put the Captain down into a chair. Stone drew out a dressing and placed it as best he could.
“All this work. All that we achieved, and it has come to this,” said Rossman solemnly.
He was bleeding from a head wound and looked exhausted, both mentally and physically.
“How long will the door hold?” King asked.
Nobody wanted to answer that, but the Sergeant finally spoke up.
“Against the hardware the Prians usually have access to, it could hold for days.”
“And with Alliance hardware?”
“It’s just a matter of time.”
King couldn’t believe it. It was as if all there had lost hope.
“We have to buy ourselves as much time as possible,” he insisted.
“It’s useless. If they breach the doors, we’re finished,” said Getz.
The Colonel looked as distraught and hopeless.
“I refuse to accept that. We were not trained to accept defeat.”
Rossman perked up. He appeared surprised there was any enthusiasm left and waited for the Lieutenant to say more.
“Are there any other ways in here?”
“Not that they could manage in the time we need,” replied Stone.
“One way in. We have superior training and weapons. Their numbers will count for nothing.”
They didn’t look enthused, but he shot bolt upright as he looked about the room.
“What are you looking for?” Getz asked.
“Anything we can block the way with.”
“Block the way?”
“Yes. We’re fighting with small arms in a single corridor. Let’s throw down what we can. Barricade it with whatever we have, and then we hold.”
“For how long?”
“As long as we need to, Captain.”
Rossman was now onboard with the idea. Everyone looked to the Colonel, having clearly found a new source of energy and motivation from the young Lieutenant’s spirit.
“Grab anything you can besides communication equipment. Barricade the corridor in. We hold,” he ordered.
“Yes, Sir,” replied Stone with a smile.
The veteran NCO looked impressed by King’s leadership and confidence. He’d been stunned by the sudden outburst of violence, but he was quickly adapting to their scenario, as Stone said he should. They all grabbed anything and everything they could. Two other lieutenants had made it with them, as well as eight Marines.
“This is all that made it back?” King asked.
“Against a regiment and bloodthirsty trained killers? It could be worse,” replied Stone.
They picked up crates, boxes, and chairs and stacked them in the hallway outside. It led to the only staircase up to the second level. They stacked equipment until it was chest high. All fell silent until an explosion burst out at the doorway. It was not enough to breach the doors, but it wouldn’t hold for long.
“How did it all come to this?” Rossman leant on the defences with his pistol in hand.
“There’s nothing more you could have done, Sir,” replied Stone.
The Colonel didn’t seem convinced, and it was hard to believe such a loyal sergeant who was predisposed to say whatever would be most comforting to his superior officer.
“Where is Captain Getz?”
“I’ll check on him.”
King rushed to the briefing room. Getz was not moving and lying back in his chair lifelessly. As the Lieutenant approached, he could see Getz was bleeding profusely from the stomach wound. He put a hand on his shoulder and felt for a pulse, but the Captain came around. He looked very weak and close to passing out once again. He smiled as he recognised King.
“Captain, are you okay?”
“My time is over, but promise me you will see the Colonel to safety?”
“I will, but…”
“But nothing. Rossman is something special. He’s destined to do great things here. He must make it out alive. Promise me you will see that happen?” He held out his hand to shake on it. His hand was covered in blood, and he was fading quickly.
“I will see it done, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Getz smiled as he held King’s hand and finally passed away.
King was overwhelmed with emotion for a moment. He’d seen death since arriving, but not someone he’d become friends with. The Captain had come to respect him as a peer, and his loss was devastating. A few tears rolled down his face, but he wiped them away as he returned to the living.
“Where’s the Captain?” Rossman asked.
He shook his head, and everyone knew what he meant.
Another explosion rang out as the mutinous Rhepoys tried to breach the door. The Colonel kept checking his watch as each minute passed, and they drew closer to rescue. The doors had to be strong as many blasts rang out and still there was no sign of the enemy. But after another fifteen minutes a blast rang out that was louder than the rest, followed by the screams of Prians, not muted like they had been before, but louder. They were in the facility.
“Ready now,” said Stone, forgetting officers were standing beside him.
They could hear the echo of boots on the stairs and the cry of the enemy, which had so recently been considered allies.
“Fight like hell, or none of us make it out alive,” said Rossman.
The first wave appeared a moment later, and they fired instantly.
Three Rhepoys were killed instantly, and two more on a second burst, but still they came, relentlessly. It was as if they had no care for their own lives at all. King had never imagined such willingness to die for a cause. A stray shot struck a lieutenant in the face and killed him instantly. In no time at all the Rhepoys were up against the barricades and scrambling to get over them. King fired at and killed one, and then another, before ducking down as a
wave of gunshots struck the barricade. He was up in time to see a Rhepoy fly over the wall and land on top of him. But a shot from the Sergeant blew his attacker’s brains out, and he was covered with their thick dark blood.
Stone offered out a hand and hauled him to his feet, but he was struck in the shoulder by a shot and stumbled backwards. The Colonel took aim and shot Stone’s attacker down with his pistol.
“We can’t stay here. We can’t hold it!” Stone shouted.
“Colonel, the transport is here!” An enthusiastic Marine rushed to deliver the news, but a shot from a Rhepoy rifle struck her square in the face, and she went down dead.
“Fallback, fallback!” Rossman ordered.
He was injured and weakened, and the Sergeant could no longer support him. King put one arm over his shoulder and helped him on as he fired back with his Aquilla in one hand. They struggled on, taking a bend when they heard the Rhepoys scrambling over their barricade. They reached another doorway and passed through, locking it behind them. They were on the roof at the headquarters’ landing pad, and the transport was coming in to land. The Colonel was getting heavier as he lost strength, and they heard an explosion at their backs. There was a hole in the door where the Rhepoys had partially blown their way through and were smashing themselves against it to make an opening.
“Sergeant!” King yelled.
Stone stopped.
“Take the Colonel.”
“What are you doing, Sir?”
Of those making it towards the landing zone he was the only one not wounded.
“Get the Colonel out of here!”
“We will do it together!”
“No, Sergeant, somebody has to hold them back or we all die here!”
The near deafening sound of the transport craft’s turbines rang out and kicked up dust all around them.
“Go!”
Stone and Rossman looked exhausted, yet they knew what he was doing for them.
“You’re a good man, Sir.” Stone took up the Colonel and rushed on.
King looked back to the doorway. It was close to being breached. He rushed back to it, put the muzzle of his Aquilla into the breach, and fired as quickly as he could. He heard screams as those beyond were struck, but a moment later the entire thing erupted with an almighty explosion. It sent him flying back two metres and crashing down to the deck. He was stunned, but knowing what was at stake, forced himself back up. He looked back. The transport craft coming in for final landing, but he could see four Rhepoys rushing towards him. One had a rifle, but the other three were down to their Firanwars. For they never equipped the Rhepoys with much ammunition except on operations that required it.
Marine- The Last Empire Page 6