Children of Steel (63 page)

“Go take care of the truck,” I whispered to
Marko as I pulled out a grenade, I’ll handle this.”

“Okay,” he nodded and turned to trot back to
where the truck was.

“Hold up a sec,” I said and he stopped as I
looked back at the two fighters, loaded down with missiles, an idea
forming in my head.

“Oh no, you’re not thinking what I think you
are,” he whispered following my gaze.

“Here, take my rifle,” I handed it to him,
it’d never fit in a cockpit and I didn’t want to lose yet another
one. “Now go!”

I pulled the pin and waited. I heard the
truck start up and start to drive down the line of hangers outside;
inside no one seemed to pay any attention to it.

A moment later the base alarm went off and
everyone jumped up. I guessed they’d finally tracked down the
signal. I tossed my grenade into the midst of them and hugged the
floor as a moment later a loud explosion shook the room and debris
flew everywhere.

I shook my head to clear it and then looked
over the wreckage of the flight room, two of the crew seemed to
still be alive, the rest of them were dead. Using my pistol I shot
them and headed over to the two fighters.

Looking outside I could see Marko had made it
down to the far end of the hangers, so I moved back inside pulled
the chocks and climbed into one of the fighters and checked the
controls. It was a standard setup as they were all Continental
series mark twenty fighters. I was familiar with it and it started
right up without a hitch.

“Marko, light it off and find a good
position!” I called on my helmet comm. They’d know we were here in
a second anyway, so radio silence wasn’t important anymore.

I taxied the jet out of the hanger and the
base really started to come to life now, Marko had lit the fuel and
the fire was spreading rapidly into the hangers. I kept taxiing
faster away from the flames as I strapped myself in. I drove down
past several troops running the opposite way; they probably thought
I was one of the flight crew trying to save the plane from the
fire.

I hit the right brake as I came to the
building I wanted and slewed the fighter around ninety degrees on
the ground, then hit both brakes bringing me to a stop. And there
it was, a hundred yards away, with its guards, sentries, and big
heavy doors. The command center.

I smiled and launched the first missile, then
a second, then a third, then a fourth. Missiles spent I triggered
the gattling gun and held it until it ran out. As the smoke from
the four missiles and their explosions cleared I could see the
doors where gone, and a good deal of the building was destroyed. I
knew however that those things usually went deep, so odds are the
people down below weren’t dead yet.

By now I was starting to take fire from some
of the soldiers running around outside, my canopy was beginning to
star from the bullet impacts. I locked the front wheel to straight
ahead, ran the throttles up to full afterburner, and as the plane
started to lurch forward against the brakes I pulled the ejection
seat.

I heard a loud explosion as I was kicked hard
in the butt and launched up out of the plane, going a good two
hundred feet into the air as the seat deployed its parachute. I was
in the air for maybe another second as the chute opened and grabbed
air giving me another hard jerk and then the seat hit the roof of a
building and tumbled over spilling me out of it as the straps
released. I rolled to the edge and grabbed for my pistol when the
sky was lit up with another explosion. Peeking over the edge I saw
the jet had crashed through the doors and I guess the fuel tanks
ruptured and then the hot engine exhaust had torched it all off.
Nothing of the building was left above ground and a large hole
burned as jet fuel ran down into it.

“You okay Sir?” I heard Marko call on my
comm.

“Yeah, but I think I’m pinned down up
here.”

“Head back towards the hangers Sir, Hess and
I will try to support.”

I turned and crawled across the roof, getting
to the edge as the first of the hangers blew up. Looking down I saw
two soldiers beneath me who had turned to look at the explosion.
Shooting them, I then swung over the side and dropped down to the
ground where they lay. Borrowing a rifle I continued to head back
towards the explosions that were coming every few seconds now, the
bright flashes giving me dark shadows to hide in as everyone’s
night sight was ruined.

Hess and Marko had taken up good sniping
positions by this point, and were covering my retreat while telling
me the best way to run at each turn. When the four shuttles with
their rockets blew it killed everyone in a hundred yard radius, and
knocked me flat even though I was well over two hundred yards back
and behind a building.

I got up before anyone else did and continued
on, my ears ringing. The explosion had thrown burning material
everywhere, I was having to dodge around large pieces of burning
debris and ragged chunks of smoking metal, the fire was spreading
all over. Everyone at this point was either stunned or so busy
trying to control the fire that I managed to get away without too
many more people interfering. Of course Hess and Marko’s shooting
helped significantly with that as well. Another ten minutes and I
joined up with Hess and Marko and we started our retreat.

“You’re slipping sir,” Hess laughed.

“How’s that?” I asked as we made our way out
past the perimeter fence, we’d run into very little opposition on
the way out.

“You didn’t get shot once!”

“Maybe I’m just getting better at this,” I
grunted and we made off into the remaining darkness.

The assault started at sunrise, which was a
good twenty four hours sooner than any of us had been told to
expect. We ended up being ordered back to edge the enemy
installation to provide ground observer information for the strike
forces on the defenses. It took them two days to pacify the base
and the nearby town; our little escapade had helped soften the
local defenses by destroying most of their aircraft. They started
landing troops on the third day and set up the invasion force
beachhead. From that point on we were split up and each assigned to
work as scouts for different elements of the Infantry Company that
had landed using our personal knowledge of the area to guide
them.

The troops however were not from Tri-Star,
they where instead from one of the corporations that had allied
itself with Tri-Star in the war so far, Hudson-Trinity. I protested
the assignment at first, but the radioed response from the
Lieutenant brooked no argument. So I had to do something that I’d
never done before in my entire life, deal with people from another
corporation, and do it all by myself as well.

“Greetings Warrant Rakir,” said the wolf
Major as I saluted reporting in. “I’m Major Schrende, this is
Captain Rust who’ll you’ll be working with,” I saluted the Captain,
who was also a wolf and had rust colored fur. Crèche workers
sometimes did things like that to people when they named us.

“I heard you were responsible for some of the
damage here at the port before we came in."

I noticed the Captain’s ears perked up a bit
at that.

“I had help Sir.”

“Still, it was an impressive piece of work.
What we need you to do now is help the Captain lead his group up to
this area on here on the map.”

I looked at the area he was pointing at on
the map on the table and nodded, “I’m familiar with that area Sir,
we covered these approaches,” I pointed to two different places on
the map leading into the one he had indicated. “On our way down
here.”

“Good, well you both had better get started
then. Good day Gentlemen."

I followed the Captain out of the tent. “How
are we traveling?” I asked.

“By foot, they haven’t brought our ground
vehicles down yet, and we don’t have the time to wait for them.
This is a fast assault infantry unit and we cover a lot of ground
pretty fast.” He looked over at me. “I hope you can keep up with
us.”

I bristled a bit at that, “I’m sure I’ll be
able to keep up with your men Captain.”

“We’re all wolves and cheetahs in this outfit
Warrant, and we’re all distance runners. You probably have a
hundred pounds on my average trooper. I’m not doubting your
abilities as a soldier, but we cover a lot of ground in this outfit
on foot when we have to, it’s our job.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep up,” I replied a
little tersely.

His people were all ready to go as soon as we
got to them, and we headed out immediately. I went over what I felt
was the best route as we moved, the two of us up at the head of the
spread out column. Everyone kept a good distance from one and
another, to avoid being taken out by a single attack.

As time wore on I had to spend more time at
the front to point out the path to take and what to avoid as
possible ambush sites. We did make contact several times with the
enemy and by late afternoon I welcomed each break as it gave me a
chance to cool down and catch my breath. The Captain hadn’t been
kidding and I
was
having trouble keeping up, long distance
running was not my forte and this group covered a lot of ground
moving at a very fast pace. The Captain’s constant checking with me
to make sure I was still up with the lead element wasn’t making me
very happy either. I might be having a hard time of it, but I
wasn’t going to slack off and let him think I couldn’t hack it.
These guys might not be from my corp, but I had my orders.

“You still with us there Warrant?” The
Sergeant I was working with up front asked me after a short water
break.

“Yeah, I’m here.” I grumbled panting.

“Why don’t you let my men take that pack for
you at least, I could split it between a couple of them.

“No thanks.”

“What, worried we might steal it?” he
laughed.

I looked up at him, “Yeah actually. I don’t
know any of you guys and you don’t even work for the same
company.”

“So you don’t trust us.”

“I don’t trust easily. Sorry.”

“Well if we really wanted what you had in
your backpack we could just shoot you and take it.”

“Possibly, but you’d lose at least a half
dozen men in the process.”

“Not if I just wait until you pass out from
the heat and exhaustion. Which you will do soon enough if you don’t
lose some of that load. Then I could just take it from your
unconscious body.” He pointed out.

“Good point,” I sighed and dumped my
backpack.

He called over four of his men then and split
my pack among them to carry.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I smiled wryly at him, “I won’t know until it
comes time to get it all back, now will I?”

He chuckled and gave me a slap on the
shoulder, “Good point.” He got up then, “Well let’s go look for
that game trail you said was up ahead.”

I nodded and headed off after him. I was
embarrassed at having to hand over my pack, but the loss of weight
really did help a lot.

“So the word is you had a little something to
do with all that destruction we saw on the ground back there at the
landing site.”

I nodded, “Yes, I had a hand in it.”

“A bit risky, wasn’t it?”

“And this isn’t?”

“We’ve got a hundred and eighty men with us,
you had what? Two?”

“Well I didn’t join special ops to
sightsee.”

He nodded as we jogged along. I took another
look at the map and pointed out a few of the landmarks up ahead he
needed to send scouts to.

After he sent them off and we continued to
move on down the narrow trail as it wound around the rocks and
through the brush.

“So why did you join then?”

“To kill the enemy, why else?”

“Been doing it long?”

“Special ops? About half a year.”

“You don’t look like a fresh recruit.”

“I’m not, I volunteered when they formed my
Block.”

“I’d noticed the flight wings on your collar.
Was kind of curious how you ended up as a ground pounder.”

“Shuttle pilots don’t get a lot of combat
time.” I observed pausing to use my binoculars to scan the hillside
up ahead.

“True, but they live longer.”

I shrugged, “Longevity isn’t the issue
anymore.”

“What is?”

“Body count.” I said and started off
again.

He thought about that for a while as we moved
through a narrow define that forced everyone to stretch out even
more to avoid being an easy target until we could have some men
take up positions on the rises to either side of it.

“There’s more to life than killing the enemy
you know.” He said a bit later when we started down a hillside in
among the local variant of trees.

“Not anymore.”

“So what will you do when we finally kill
them all, when there aren’t any left?”

I shrugged, “Deal with that when the day
comes. Why do you care?”

“When you’ve been doing this job as long as I
have, you learn a few things.” He said dropping back even with me
and lowering his voice, “People in unit’s like this, they’re afraid
of the hotdogs, the guys with a score to settle or a point to
prove. They don’t like the type that charges right in, cause then
the rest of us have to charge right in too.”

“Don’t worry Sergeant, I don’t expect any of
you to follow me into trouble or back me up if things go wrong,” I
growled softly.

“You got me wrong Son, if you get in it we’ll
all get in it too, one guy charges, we all charge, we’re infantry
it’s what we do. But none of these boys and girls are special ops,
they don’t have the training you do.

“So don’t go leading my troops into a meat
grinder because you just have to take that target to satisfy your
own sense of revenge, you might be able to handle it, but they sure
can’t.”