Freehold (60 page)

A hum alerted her. She spun and saw another recon drone, hovering and scanning. She swung her weapon up and fired a grenade. It arced away, struck a limb and detonated. She cursed. Her weapon had been set to minimum airburst when the EMP hit them, but it had defaulted to contact fusing. It couldn't accept proximity fusing, as the sensors and controls were damaged. She took careful aim and fired again at the small pod. She missed as it easily evaded, and fired at it again. This time she hit and it exploded, metal and fiber confetti drifting out of the smoky cloud.

The damage was already done. The incoming fire was intensifying and seeker projos swarmed down. She ran back upslope obliquely, hearing them
zizzzzz!
behind her as they sought human body temperature. The enemy knew what line they were on now.

She had a repeat of her first warning, as the second woman in line almost wasted her, too.
"Incoming! Run!"
she repeated and staggered past. She ordered the next one to get the message to the other side and pull them back, then alert the next unit. He nodded and ran.

She ducked past a tree and another drone sat a bare two meters from her, drinking in data. She fired bullets at it as it tried to dodge. It thrust up then over and down again. Finally, a few shots grazed it and she caught the main probe panel with a lucky shot. It drifted away, weaving as it did and she downed it with two more shots. A distant series of thumps indicated another salvo of canisters full of seekers on the way from small mortars.

The squad was peeling back slowly, which was still dangerous, but might let some of the others survive. They'd have to clear a safe distance, then hold it against anything that came. If she could get a runner to the next platoon for support, they could keep the UN where it was until the artillery arrived. Seekers swarmed through the woods like angry hornets, seeking warmth to bury themselves in. The cold wetness of the trees made it easy for them to find the blazing heat of the defenders' bodies, but also interfered with their flights. Kendra heard a
zizzzzz!
and a meaty thunk as one caught her in the calf.

She stumbled, rolled upright and kept limping, shrieking under her breath in tortured agony. It felt exactly as she'd been told it would to get shot—a freezing, burning, electric cramp through the muscles.

She reached the second man from her position, whose leg was shattered. He'd tied a tourniquet and stopped the bleeding, but couldn't possibly walk. He was barely conscious. She slung her rifle, pulled at his arm and began dragging him, fire lancing up her leg. Waving her left arm, she stumbled toward the last troop in line. He came running to help. "
No!
" she shouted.
"Retreat!"
 

Through the roaring confusion she somehow detected death approaching from all sides. She spun and walked a burst of automatic fire into a disorganized gaggle of UN soldiers just coming through the trees, shooting offhand with her left hand, the weapon a heavy, kicking weight on her wrist, an ache in her arm. Sighting movement in the dying flicker of a flare, she lobbed three more grenades, still set to contact fuse, into an approaching knot from the right flank. The enemy were spilling through the gap to her right, pounding for the summit to hold the position and fight an attrition battle that they would surely win. She fired to her left again, then to the right, while backing away with her burden.

Her good ankle twisted on a branch, spilling her to the ground. She stifled a scream as her casualty groaned, still alive, and she forced herself to her knees and up under him. She muscled him into a rescue carry, more painful but faster. After nearly three hundred meters of sprinting through rough terrain, with a burden for the last fifty, she was seeing black spots. A hidden tactical part of her brain made her reach for, arm and throw her two hand grenades to keep the enemy's head down. They were small charges, but even with the cover of the trees they were close enough after her feeble throws that the blasts ripped at her. She ate up one clip and let the weapon hang from its sling so she could reload with her single available hand, falling uphill and to the right.

Her last right-flank troop had either not heard her or ignored her. He dropped two clips at her feet, took the limp form from her shoulder and hefted it easily across his brawny back. "You have the rifle, you cover me! Back soon!" he shouted and took off at a sprint.

Kendra grabbed the clips and turned, throat too dry to talk or swallow, and pumped out her last nine grenades. There were figures darting all around her now and she wasn't sure if any were friendlies. There wasn't time to decide. She leaned against a tree for support, raised her rifle and used the iron sights. She had no idea how many she killed, but the barrel was hot enough to burn her hand by the time she finished the next clip. She reached for another as she retreated. Then her unconscious kicked in again. She threw herself flat.

Rob threw his craft over the ridgeline inverted. That allowed maximum gees and better control. He grunted as the strain hit his guts and legs, and triggered the cannon.
I hope the friendlies are clear, because I'm killing everything,
he thought. He raked the fire straight down, rolling around his point of aim to right the craft. That was as close as he dared get to the reported Freehold line, not wanting to perpetuate the oxymoron of "friendly fire." As he leveled across the plain, he unloaded incendiary and HE bomblets and a canister of butterfly mines. They were nasty little things, basically two razor blades and a detonating cap. They'd cripple anyone who stepped on one.

He Immelmanned back on his course, straining the engines and the airframe, and locked missiles and rockets back along the route he'd come. He designated two points on the top of the ridge and tossed HE that way, then tore to his right along the treeline. He dumped the racks on what looked like an entire regiment of dismounted infantry, their vehicles parked and useless. He lit a few tanks, just because he could, and any ADA, because he had to and to keep them too busy to worry about the friendlies, and headed south. He'd swing between the chain of hills and come back to the aviation position that way. He hugged the earth for safety as he went, driving the speed up past 2500 kpd. "Target tank, target ayda priority, target, one, two, thermal, selsee, three retar antarm, target target four five, reset dez, target one, target mortar two, eecee flare, left cannon target three, target four thermal, mass target five cannon . . ." He controlled his craft with the surety of years of practice, straining the system to the edge of its envelope with the mass of targeting data.

He punched through a large, low cloud of smoke, lifting slightly, just in case. Sensors didn't show anything in it, but he wasn't taking chances.

Pain!!
Shock. Heat. Cold. Electromagnetic pulse directed at his craft was powerful enough to overload the shielding capacity of his craft's frame and hit his implant. The controls flickered in his sight, resumed chaotically with figures that made no sense. He scanned, still stunned, head throbbing and eyes blurring. He'd dropped dangerously low while recovering.

WARNING! flashed in his environment. He scanned the telltales and saw nothing, and felt no touches at his temples. Control link gone or implant module damaged. Vision began to fade. He swore and slowed. At least he was clear of the UN lines. Now what?

Control was failing. The ground was coming up fast. He pulled and nothing happened. Boosting throttles didn't help.

Shit.

What the hell was up there? Meyer wondered. He'd saturated the area with what support weapons he had and the drones showed only a few infantry. The squad leaders were still reporting heavy small arms fire and the casualty count confirmed it. Could they all be in dug-in positions? But sonar and seismograph showed no major holes. Individual positions shouldn't be hard to overrun . . . unless there were a
lot
of them. That many should show some kind of thermal reading, sound or
something
the drones could measure. Nothing. The rebels had just plowed the area with close support, so it had to be clear now. He relayed that advice and ordered them to push harder. This should do it. If they could break through now, the enemy would have to surrender or be slaughtered and he could call for reinforcements.

The sky filled with the basso fabric-ripping sound of high-speed cannons. Hatchets made that sound, and nothing else. Wet splinters showered Kendra as the swath of death moved within meters of her and downslope. She stood quickly, surprising a Peacekeeper about to step on her. He staggered, confused and staring blankly and she kicked his kneecap, wondering why her calf no longer hurt. As he stumbled, she brought her leg up, knee in his face, and crashed her rifle on the back of his neck. She jerked a half step, knee searing, and shot again. The buddy of the last assailant appeared next to her, pointing the muzzle of his weapon into her face. She stared down the black hole for only a microsecond, then parried it and smashed him in the face with her muzzle as she shot. She swung around and fired at another trio stumbling into view. Her clip ran out and she reached for another. She had none. She buttstroked another soldier as he charged blindly past, kicked his ankle from under him and circled her foot over to crush this throat, feeling the gristly crunch up her leg. She grinned unconsciously. This was it. Time to die. A ripple ran up her spine.

Slinging the weapon and drawing her sword, she turned and ran uphill. Another drone sat in the crotch of a tree, trying to be inconspicuous. She jabbed the blade into the nacelle and the turbine shredded, throwing needlelike shards into her hand. They didn't do much damage, but her hand blazed with white-hot pain. As she ran past, the sky was ripped again, level with her, as a pilot gunned along the bottom of the hill. Ahead of her, two UN troops were braced against a tree, shooting at someone from her squad. She slashed across the spine of one and thrust into the kidney of the second. The first one screamed and thrashed to the ground, half paralyzed. The second simply collapsed. The keen blade had sliced through fabric designed to resist impact, not cutting.

Sheathing her sticky, gory blade, she grabbed the weapon and magazines from the dead one as she rolled for cover, bullets cracking past her. It was familiar from practice years past and Freehold training, and she retreated backward, shooting at anything that moved, starting with the one she'd wounded with her sword. The targets were backlit by the roiling fires below and she picked them out and picked them off. Fire. Aim. Fire. Aim. A round cracked past her ear, ignored in her current frame of mind. Shoot. Shoot again. Reload.

She saw movement, aimed toward it, then realized in the shifting light that the clothing of the figure on the ground was local hunting camouflage and the person wearing it was not in anything resembling cover. He was still moving, though. She fired three bursts to keep heads down and ran downslope. Her calf cramped with every jarring heelbeat and she winced, biting her lip. A few rounds made her flinch and she ducked lower, running hunched over.

The casualty was one of hers, but she had forgotten his name. Again she slung her weapon, heaved him up and around and over her shoulder and backed away, firing with her half aching, half tingling-numb left arm. Her bursts were fired for directional effect, not with any real hope of hitting anything. She stopped shooting as incoming rounds replied, aiming where her weapon had been when she fired. A part of her brain realized that meant that the UN helmets were nonfunctional, also. The pilot must have emped them as he tore overhead.

She chose her aim carefully and walked a series of bursts into the area in question. No further fire came from that one, but tens of others whipped past, cracking as they did. She stumbled, recovered and carefully lowered her burden behind a shattered stump. She crouched, rested her arm on her knee, and recalled where the last flashes had been. Returning to single shots to conserve ammo, she returned fire as fast as she could aim and squeeze. The enemy approaching seemed simply to materialize out of the flickering light and she swung back and forth, stopping the closest, taking any targets of opportunity between them. It was a losing proposition and she knew it. Fire. Fire again. Click! Curse and reload with one partial magazine. She quickly checked for her sword, realizing she would need it again soon.

Her shots spaced longer apart, then stopped. She could see UN troops throwing their weapons, scuttling behind trees and waving their arms. Cries of "Surrender!" and "Medic!" sounded all around, mingled with curses and screams.

The hillside was eerily quiet behind the voices, bereft of weapons fire. Smoke and steam drifted past in a nightmarish illusion of reality. She could hear ringing in her ears and wondered if she were deaf. There was smoky fire below and to her right. Running fingers through her hair, she waited for any sign of movement. Nothing. She crawled behind the tree, dragged her second casualty over her shoulder, turned and trudged, alert for danger, watching for her people. There they were. Eight of them and one wounded, anyway. And more fires behind them. She and her casualty made it eleven out of twenty.

Her hair was sticky, she thought. In a moment, she realized it was her hand. Blood. Probably from the victim she'd carried. Then she remembered the shower of shrapnel from the drone. Then she noticed the neat gouge in her arm, where she thought a branch had caught her. It was a bullet wound and suddenly hurt like hell. Her arm cramped up and she winced. Blood was running freely. Her leg turned rubbery, then tensed up, dropping her sideways.

She collapsed as hands reached for her.

General Meyer stood as the rebel commander entered. A man, quite young and shorter than he, saluted and said, "I am Colonel Alan Naumann, General. I accept your surrender. Please order all your assets to cease fire and prepare for internment."

He saluted back. "I already have, Colonel. My congratulations on a brilliant mission. I wouldn't have thought it possible . . ." he tapered off, realizing that his career and perhaps his life were over. Outside, his headquarters company marched by, hands on heads, escorted by Freeholders. The prisoners looked stunned and occasionally sent awed glances toward the outnumbered enemy that had simply refused to yield to reality.