Vengeance (The Kurgan War Book 4) (26 page)

Sheridan stared down at the wrecked weapon. He saw his friend smile at him before yanking the carbine out of his hands and sending it flying across the room. The next thing he knew, Williams grabbed ahold of his neck and hauled him up into the air until his feet were dangling beneath him.

“Goodbye, Mike,” said Williams as he threw his opponent against a tall stack of crates.

With a loud crash, Sheridan smashed into the boxes and tumbled to the ground, moaning in pain. He staggered to rise just as Williams ran over and kicked him hard in the stomach, doubling him over. Though the liquid armor absorbed most of the blow, still Sheridan’s innards felt like they had been turned into jelly. His feet began to wobble. Unable to stand anymore, he collapsed back onto his knees. He gasped and wheezed as he fought to catch his breath.
 

“Not only did the Kurgans give me an artificial heart, they also replaced my arms and my legs with mechanical ones as the old ones were too badly frozen to be saved,” said Williams as he shot his right hand out. He wrapped it around Sheridan’s neck and squeezed it tight. “You’re lucky I don’t have time to waste on you today, or you’d learn the true meaning of pain.”

 
Sheridan couldn’t speak. He was having a hard enough time trying to breathe. He knew he was seconds away from blacking out.
 

“Time to die, Mike,” said Williams as he tightened his grip on Sheridan’s throat.

From off to the right, a shot rang out.

Williams let go of Sheridan and staggered back. He brought a hand up to his head to stop the bleeding from a bullet that had grazed the side of his skull. He turned and ran back to the shuttlecraft before another shot could be fired at him.

Sheridan’s throat was on fire. He let out a wet cough filled with blood as he tried to get up onto all fours. His vision narrowed as his body gave in. In the second before he blacked out he saw a dark shape above him grab his collar and begin to pull him back.

Chapter 37

At the front entrance to the Dorset Station, two insurgents paced back and forth, keeping guard. They shuffled their feet trying keep them warm. One and then the next man stopped and peered out into in the falling snow. In the dark, an odd sound seemed to be growing closer. Both men exchanged a puzzled look before taking their rifles from their shoulders. They looked into the night, trying to see what was there. Before they knew what was happening, a dark shape raced out of the storm straight at them. They brought up their weapons and opened fire only to see their bullets ricochet harmlessly off the steel plow of a speeding vehicle. One man dove out of the way. The other was fixed in place with fear. He was struck in the chest by the plow and sent flying back through the front doors of the station. A second later, with a loud crash, the snow plow smashed through the doors and kept going.

The insurgent who had jumped clear watched in disbelief as a vehicle drove past him. He saw a woman at the wheel and ran after the plow, hoping to shoot the driver when the truck came to a stop. He had barely gone ten meters when a ghostly shape came out of the blowing snow and thrust a knife into the stunned man’s neck.

“Hang on!” yelled Tarina to Wendy as she kept her foot glued to the accelerator.
 

“I’m okay, just don’t stop, whatever you do,” replied her friend.

Door after door down the long corridor was turned into kindling. Behind them ran a platoon of white-coated soldiers. Dispatched when the crisis began to help guard the station, the soldiers had bumped into the women right after they had fired up the plow. Together they had hatched the plan to liberate the station from the insurgents.
 

Tarina saw the elevator doors leading to the control room and slammed on the brakes. The vehicle came to a sliding halt. She and Wendy leaped from the cab and rushed toward the elevator.

“Wait,” called out the platoon leader, a young second lieutenant. “It’ll be guarded. You won’t get out of the elevator alive.”

“Mister Kagura, if fleet is correct, we have less than two minutes to stop Tranquility Station from entering Earth’s atmosphere,” pointed out Tarina.

“There is another way.”

Angela sat in her chair and stared up at the roof. The sound of the truck barreling its way deep inside the base had made everyone in the room stop and look upward. The sudden silence foretold that something was about to happen.

“When the shooting starts, dive for the floor and stay there until it’s over,” whispered Angela to the two techs.

“I can fight,” replied the young man.

She shook her head. “No. Do as I say.”

The attack was sudden and swift. In rapid succession, two holes were blasted through the roof. Before the smoke had settled, soldiers jumped down into the room and opened fire.

Angela was right to drag the technicians to the floor with her, as the soldiers fired at anything that moved. Pavel and another insurgent died trying to stop the attackers. Miguel shot a soldier in the chest only to die a second later, cut down by Second Lieutenant Kagura.

A sergeant found the three survivors lying facedown on the floor. His orders, however, were clear he was to kill anyone they found in the room. He hesitated. They didn’t look like insurgents to him. He turned his head and called out, “Captain Pheto, are you down here?”

Tarina ran to the sergeant’s side and pushed his rifle to the floor. “Don’t shoot. They’re friendlies.”

“Thank God, I didn’t fire,” said the sergeant.

Tarina held out a hand for Angela.

“Praise the Lord that you showed up when you did, or we’d all be dead,” said Angela as she got to her feet.

Like a sprinter taking off, the female technician leaped up and ran to the computer console Miguel had been sitting behind. She pushed a soldier who had been checking the dead body for information out of the way and slid down into the seat.
 

Tarina and Angela ran to join her.

The timer on the clock read thirty-three seconds.

“Can you stop the station from falling back to Earth?” Tarina asked, her voice tense and scared.

The technician didn’t answer the question as she was too absorbed in what she was doing. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. On the screen, time faded fast. With a triumphant bang of her thumb on the enter key, she looked up at the monitor. The timer read fifteen seconds. Not another second ticked by. She had done it. The order had been canceled and Tranquility Station’s computers had been brought back online.

A cheer rang out from the soldiers huddled around the workstation.

“Enough of that,” barked a tough-looking staff sergeant. “We got work to do. We need to secure the bodies and the station until help arrives.”

Tarina felt a hand on her arm. It was Angela. “I’m so happy to see you. I thought you were dead.”

“Wendy and I are okay. Everyone else including Commander Roy is dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Hell, I’m not even sure whose fault it is.”

“Hey down there,” called out Wendy from above. “Is everyone alright?”

“We’re good as can be,” replied Angela with a wave up at her friend.

“One of the soldiers just told me that a company of Home Guard regulars will be here in the next ten minutes. I guess it’s all over.”

Tarina saw the look of melancholy in Angela’s eyes and saw that it wasn’t over for her, not by a long shot.

Chapter 38

Sheridan opened his heavy eyelids and blinked. The light in the room was bright. He brought up a hand to block the light and saw that he had an IV in his arm. His mouth was dry and tasted like he had eaten cotton for breakfast.
 

He looked around the room and moaned, “Not again.”

“That’s right, you’re in a hospital,” said Cole from the bed next to Sheridan’s. He was sitting up in his bed with a grin on his face.

He tried to think but found his memory was still hazy. “What happened? The last thing I remember was being used as a human pińata by Harry and then nothing.”

“You’re lucky I came by when I did or you’d be dead by now. You’ve got some broken bones. The docs had to open you up to stem the bleeding from a punctured spleen, or something like that.”

“Where’s Harry?”

“He got away with the virus.”

Sheridan shook his head. After all they had been through, they had failed. “Do you know what happened to Staff Sergeant Elba?”

“I’m here,” she said as she was wheeled into the room by an orderly. Her shoulder was wrapped up in gauze. “If it weren’t for Master Sergeant Cole, I would have been sucked into space when Mister Williams opened the outer doors and flew off.”

Cole smiled at Elba. “I found her on the way back with you and dragged her to safety as well. Unfortunately, the young kid with Anne never made it.”

“I guess we both owe you our thanks,” said Sheridan.

“I’d say you owe me a beer, but since you and I don’t drink, you can buy me an expensive steak dinner when they let us out of here.”

“Speaking of that, where are we?”

“We’re still on Tranquility Station. I’ve been told that Admiral Oshiro will be coming by sometime tomorrow afternoon to talk to us.”

“Do you think we could escape before then?”

Cole chuckled. “I might be able to, but you and the good staff sergeant are going nowhere for days.”

Sheridan groaned. He disliked the limelight that accompanied visits by flag officers. He placed his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes. Right away he saw Tarina’s face and smiled. The drugs still in his system helped him to fade back into a deep sleep. For the first time in ages he dreamt.

Chapter 39

Hidden inside an asteroid field near the Kurgan border floated a transport ship. For close protection, a couple of fighters stood ready to assist.

It had been a month since the events on Dorset Island. Admiral Oshiro had received permission from President Martinez to send Angela home. The mission from beginning to end was conducted under the utmost secrecy. Most of the people involved thought that they were launching a clandestine mission deep into enemy territory. The shuttle they were going to use to send Wendy back to her children was a captured Kurgan ship which added to the deception.

In the flight hangar, Tarina and Wendy waited to say goodbye to their friend. A minute later, Kitan, as she now preferred to be called, walked out of a side room dressed in a Kurgan survival suit.

“Everything has been automated for you. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. I’ve programmed your nav-computer with the coordinates you gave me,” Wendy explained to Kitan. “From here it should take you three days to reach your home.”

“Since you’ll come out of your jump over land, all you have to do is jump from the shuttle and let your parachute do the rest,” said Tarina.

Kitan smiled at her friends. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you for your kindness.”

“Without you we would have died back on that prison planet,” said Wendy.

“I think we’re pretty well even if you ask me,” added Tarina.

“Three minutes,” said a voice over the ship’s PA system.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye,” said Kitan, trying not to cry.

Tarina was no better. She forced a smile as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Look after yourself and your children.”

“I will.” With that, she embraced Tarina and then Wendy before turning to board the shuttle.
 

The two women watched the door to the ship close. With the launch only one minute away, they jogged out of the hangar and watched the shuttle’s departure on a computer monitor.

“God speed, Kitan,” said Tarina as the shuttle jumped away.

“Do you think she’ll make it?” asked Wendy.

Tarina shrugged. “For her children’s sake, I hope so.”

A man’s voice came over the speakers. “All hands, this is the captain, we will be jumping back to Illum Prime in two minutes’ time. Secure the ship for the jump.”

“Hungry?” Wendy asked.

“Yeah, I could go for a plate of eggs.”
 

Chapter 40

Sheridan ran a hand through his hair and stepped back from the mirror. His dress blue uniform was as presentable as he could make it.

“Enough about you, how do I look?” asked Cole.

“As ugly as ever.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not much better, sir.”

Sheridan chuckled. A second later, his mood changed like a switch being turned off when he realized that they were on their way to a memorial service for Commander Roy. He had only met her a couple of times in the past and always found her to be a pleasant person. It was his father, Admiral Robert Sheridan, who had taken her death hard. She had been his aide for close to two years and he had grown to respect and like her. It was going to be a hard task to replace her.

After the somber service, Michael Sheridan and his father adjourned to his quarters for a few minutes to discuss a few matters before they had supper.

“How are your wounds healing up?” his father asked.