Invasion of Kzarch (6 page)

“Where’s your man going?”

“He’s scouting ahead, captain.” Captain Fil’dwis eyed where the Marine had disappeared around a nearby building, then shrugged.

“Hope you don’t mind if I send a few of my own guys ahead.” It wasn’t a question.

“No, sir.”

Nodding, the captain gestured a few of his men forward. They had taken several steps forward, when suddenly something flew up from inside the compound. It was big, a good bit larger than a truck, but moving too fast to be clearly seen.

“What th-”

“Gunboat!” the lieutenant snapped, his internal helmet display already targeting it. Unlike the gunboats they already knew about, this one was lighter and faster, obviously designed to work in the atmosphere, as well as space.

With a grimace, Frank also saw that the gunboat, a Windstrike, had fairly heavy shields, compared to a Blastfire at least. The only real comfort was that the gunboat was too small to carry much in the way of weaponry. But how had it launched itself so quickly? A regularly scheduled flight?

“Gunboat.” Captain Fil’dwis stated, almost musingly. “But it shouldn’t have been prep-
Shit!
” He glanced around. “Everyone,
hold
!
It’s an ambush
!”

Instinctively accepting the captain’s reasoning, Frank surged forward.

“Andy, stay with the captain! Guard the team, especially from the Windstrike!” he ordered over the com. The Marine acknowledged, unslinging his exby rifle.

“Yessir!”

Battlesuit sensors seeking out his opponents, Frank tried to figure out where he should head, aside from forwards.

Before he could get far, though, Javer reappeared, heading towards him, jogging leisurely.

Over the com, the sergeant said, “Sir, they’re coming out of the main building. All of ‘em armed. They’re charging in this direction.”

“Got it, sarge. The guerrilla scouts?”

“Right behind me.”

Indeed, several guerrillas were scrambling behind him, occasionally turning to let off a shot, at the pirates who were beginning to appear.

“Shit. There must be a hundred or more of them.” Frank stated flatly.

“Yessir.”

The lieutenant thought for a moment, while raising an arm and snapping off a shot from his weg.

“Okay. Andy, use a grenade. Blow out the wall behind you. Javer, you and I will try to slow the-” At that point, an alert beeped on his comp.

Immediately, Frank twisted and looked up, now facing the sky, where the Windstrike was boring in, right behind two missiles.

His arms immediately swung up, and he began firing rapidly at the approaching missiles, mind and sensors measuring coolly how much time he had before they’d be in range.

Two point seven seconds…

Then one exploded as a shot from his left weg cannon hit it, followed by the other, from an exby shot from Andy, who was, as ordered, guarding against the Windstrike.

All three Marines then commenced firing on the Windstrike itself, but the gunboat, after launching another set of rockets, immediately pulled away.

By the time the two new missiles were taken care of, the Windstrike was out of range, its damage at most a few metaphorical shield dents, if that.

Giving up on it for a moment, Frank turned back to the pirate mob, shooting rapidly, along with the other guerrillas and Sergeant Javer. A second later, there was an explosion from the wall, as Andy took care of their escape route.

“Sir, get
down
!”

“What-?”

The lieutenant then got tackled.

“What’re you-” he spluttered.

“A battlesuit’s tough, sir, but not impenetrable.” the sergeant calmly explained, using a weg to take out an approaching pirate. “And they
do
have
some
heavy weapons.”

“…Right.” Frank mentally cursed himself for making a rookie mistake. Together, the two Marines kept the pirates from approaching further, until finally Andy reported, “Sir, all the remaining guerrillas are out.”

Remaining?
Frank shoved the word out of his mind, and, with a quick word to Javer, began laying down preventive fire, as he and his sergeant leapfrog-fired back to the wall.

After only a few moments, the two were out of the compound, where the waiting guerrillas were guarding the hole in the wall.

It was then that the Windstrike returned.

“All troops retreat! Full speed!” Captain Fil’dwis bellowed.

At the same time, Frank ordered over the com, “Andy, Javer, all firepower on the Windstrike,
now
!” A barrage of shots greeted the gunboat, who began launching missiles at the fleeing guerrilla team, as well as using its beam cannons this time.

When it finally broke off, it did so awkwardly, its engines having taken several light hits. The guerrillas had the worse of the exchange though, losing several men. As well, Andy had been hit directly by one of the Windstrike’s beam cannons.

“You all right?” Frank inquired as he lifted him up. The Marine’s shield had protected him from most of the energy shot, but his battlesuit was definitely looking the worse for wear.

“Fine, sir. …Mostly.”

Helping the injured Marine forward, Frank gave a worried glance back at the sky.

“Javer…”

“On it, sir.”

Making his way to the front of the group, half carrying Andy, the lieutenant asked the jogging Captain Fil’dwis, “You think they’re going to keep coming after us?”

Several shots were heard back from the hole in the wall, where the pirates were finally coming through.

“Yep.” the captain grunted in resignation.

The lieutenant swore, as the captain ordered, “Ashley, set up a rearguard! Everyone,
move
it!”

“Already done, sir!” The small sergeant was better at her job than she looked.

Constantly taking attacks from the back, and occasional strafing attacks from the Windstrike, the team beat a fighting retreat.

***

Several hours later they finally managed to break contact, after they succeeded in bringing down the Windstrike thirty minutes previous. Sergeant Javer had managed a lucky hit on the gunboat’s engine, causing it to crash. And their last encounter with the pirate’s ground force had been nearly forty minutes ago.

Unfortunately, they had also lost most of the guerrilla team, only eight effective left, aside from the sergeant and captain. As well, Frank himself had taken a nasty hit to the right arm in the Windstrike’s last attack.

When the general heard about their losses, and about the utter failure of their mission, he was
not
happy.

“You
failed
. And
lost
most of your
men
. Do you think this is acceptable, Captain Fil’dwis? Lieutenant?”

“No, sir.”

“No, general.”

“No?
No
?! Then why did this happen?!”

“Sir, we couldn’t expect them to have a hidden, prepared gunboat, and we were outnumbered over five to one,” Captain Fil’dwis pointed out.

“And you think we can only fight battles where we can match our opponents, captain?”

“No, but we need to be able to at least fight them on
our
terms, sir,” Lieutenant Harsmith put in.

“Is that what
you
think, lieutenant?” General Juan said, rounding on him.

“Yessir.”

“Then let me tell you what
I
think…” The next several minutes was devoted to an soliloquy of what the general thought of them and their ideas.

When he finally finished, he sat back in his chair, not saying anything.

Lieutenant Harsmith cleared his throat.

“Sir. How did the other missions go?”

The general shrugged.

“About as well as could be expected. Some successes, mostly failures. A few got ambushed like you did. We now know that they have three-
had
three, now two, Windstrikes. They might have more, but I doubt it. I suspect they kept the three back, just in case… And now, with our attacks, it’s reached ‘just in case’.”

Frank overall agreed, although he intended to keep an open eye out for any other surprises. Just in case.

“Did we accomplish anything particular of note, sir?”

“Hmph. Well, they lost three gunboats, one Windstrike to you, and another two Blastfires. Your Marines did a good job,” he said grudgingly.

“Thank you, sir, on their behalf.”

The general negligently waved an arm.

“We also managed to kill a good hundred-fifty of their men,” he continued. “And hit some of their supply compounds, strongholds, and the like.”

“And our losses, sir?”

“Over fifty of our men have been seriously injured, and another hundred killed. And three Marines.”

The lieutenant winced.

“Not good.”

“
No
, lieutenant,” the general said ironically. “Not good at all.” He sighed.

“You’re both dismissed,” he said coldly, studying the map on the table now.

Frank considered informing him, that, as the general wasn’t in his chain of command, he had no authority to dismiss him…

But decided discretion was the better part of the valor.

About-facing sharply with the captain, the two strode out of the room.

“The general’s in a bad position,” the captain finally offered, in an attempt to smooth things over, as they made their way down the hall.

Frank blinked.

“What? Oh. Yes, of course. Actually, I’m just wondering what we’re going to do next.”

“Wish I knew myself…”

***

“Let’s see… Three gunboats lost? A hundred men dead?” Bloody Jack thoughtfully tapped at the table, as he stared at his captains, who avoided looking at him. All were sure he was looking for a scapegoat.

“Mad?”

“We got two hundred of
them.
By
my
count, that puts us up.”

“No. No, it
doesn’t
.” Bloody Jack was now smiling, but the tension in the room was only racketing higher.

“Do you know why?” He waited a moment. Then his smile disappeared, to be replaced by an ugly look. Bloody Jack leaned forward.

“BECAUSE WE LOST THREE GUNBOATS!” he roared out. Several of the pirates leaned involuntarily back. Hamil, the operations officer, winced.

Calming slightly, the pirate chieftain continued, “We could lose a
thousand
men, and still be in a better position than if losing those gunboats.” An exaggeration, perhaps, but not by much.

“And their losing two hundred men?” He blew a raspberry. “It means
nothing
. We could lose one man to
ten
of theirs, and they’d still
win
. Remember, there are literally
millions
of potential recruits for them on the planet.”

“Then why did we come here?” one of the pirate captains asked, a nasty, provoking looking individual. He looked at Bloody Jack with a barely veiled contempt.

“If the entire planet is going to be against us, if we’re going to have to fight
all
of them, what was the point of all this? How’s it worth it?” Bloody Jack considered him for a moment. Then the pirate burst into flame.

Immediately, all the pirates near the flaming pyre that had once been a pirate captain leaped away.

Raising his hand from below the tabletop, Bloody Jack showed his flamer to all those who hadn’t figured it out.

There was a silence, as the pirates alternatively stared at Bloody Jack, the walls, and at the still burning man. Mad, on the other hand, only focused on the flames, eyes and mouth showing a terrible joy.

“If you idiots would actually
conquer
the planet, it would be fine,” Bloody Jack answered, as if the pirate captain was in any shape to hear.

He paused, but no-one expressed disagreement. Almost disappointed, he sat back and holstered his gun.

“All right. What’s done is done. Hamil, I want you to leave three gunboats, one of them a Windstrike, around the governor’s mansion. Then organize the others and set-up a plan to hunt the guerrillas. Hand it over to Mad to execute, and have them start scouring the guerrillas out. Try to remind them to use the beam cannons, not missiles. But if they have to, go ahead and let them. We
do
have enough in stock to replace missile usage… to an extent,” he finished warningly.

“Got, cap’n.” Hamil replied, already busy tapping away at a comp pad.