Jethro: First to Fight (82 page)

Unfortunately the implant's zeal could
be the lion's undoing if he didn't work fast. “Get this one back to Firefly.
We'll need to operate fast,” Gusterson said to two skin suited Marines who were
acting as stretcher bearers.

The two humans nodded and picked up the
suit carefully by the hand holds on the shoulders and the legs. “Damn heavy,”
the leader muttered.

“Just shut up and haul ass,” the other
said, moving.

Gusterson sighed and wiped at the blood
on his gloved hands. He turned and followed the squad.

...*...*...*...*...

“Ox, get up here, it's time for more of
your babies,” Valenko snarled, pointing to the way ahead. The Tauren nodded and
came forward. He released a swarm of micro robots that scattered in different
directions.

“The elves reported a concentration of
forces in the residential area on our left Lieutenant,” Ox reminded the bear.
There were two residential districts coming up ahead as they made for the
utility corridor exit. Beyond them was a small mall, then a park and the lifts.
Zimmer's HQ had been here up until a half hour ago, then he'd moved.

“I know. I just want to make sure there
really is someone there worth going after with the full force, not a mirage or
wild goose chase. They exited the utility corridor and entered an axial. From
all reports Zimmer had a half platoon of soldiers waiting to get behind them
and attack from the rear after they passed.

“Can't have that,” Valenko murmured,
changing direction. He was tempted to split his force but he was already down
by several suits, he didn't want to get bogged down and let attrition be a
factor here. But he also didn't want to get bogged down engaging the small
force and allowing Zimmer to come up and hit him on the side.

He ran his long tongue over his canines
for a moment then clucked. “Decisions decisions. Okay, we're going with the
tango's who are playing hide and seek in the residential section first.”

“Oh goodie,” Asazi said.

“Don't get cocky. It's a maze in there,
dark and room after room. We might run into civilians too, so check your fire.”

“Don't get stupid! They're using IED's
now! Remember your training!” Valenko snarled. They were in a darkened maze of
corridors in the residential block, the enemy kept falling back ahead of them.
They had led the Marines in a circle once, but had broken off just before
contact. The enemy was in here with them somewhere, but they had killed the
cameras. They were getting wise to that, shooting out any camera they could find,
even ATM's.

It was maddening for some, they wanted
action.

“We don't know where they are. The
forward thirty meters are clear. We'll move forward to...”

“Heeey, I got this!” Fonz said dropping
his spent shield. “We've got armor remember!” he ran past the threshold of the
sensor ball Asazi rolled. He felt a bit of guilt over Kovu getting hurt, it was
partly his fault after all. He wanted to bury himself in combat to get some
revenge.

“Fonz wait!” Asazi called. “We haven't
scouted that corner!”

“What's there to worry about. This is
the Fonz we're talking about,” Fonz said, then yelped as he spotted the crew
service plasma gun waiting for him when he cut the corner. He started to throw
himself to the ground but it was too late, the plasma hit him in his exposed
torso, partially deflecting off his chest plates, but boring into his abdomen.
He got one scream off as the plasma breached his armor and roasted him alive.

...*...*...*...*...

Sergei roared when he saw Fonz's IFF go
dead. It was obvious now, the Horathians had taken out the cameras in the area
to set their ambush up. He turned, hefted his rifle and then slammed into a
bulkhead, tearing it apart with his claws. “I'll take care of this,” he
snarled, moving through the hole.

“What the hell does he think he's
doing?” Asazi demanded.

“He's flanking them, follow him and try
to keep him out of trouble!” Valenko ordered.

“Shit,” Asazi swore, ducking through the
hole. Panache followed.

Sergei followed the map on his HUD.
“Where where where...”

“Sergei, this is stupid, come on back,
we'll find another way,” Asazi implored from behind him.

“This won't bring Fonz back,” Panache
said quietly. “Trust me,
I know
. I've been where you are Sergei.”

“Don't you think I don't know that?” the
liger roared, turning on the two females behind him. His eyes glittered. “I
know he's gone. I'm going to make sure the bastards don't get a chance to
gloat. Now come on!”

...*...*...*...*...

“Did you see the look on that one's face
as you pulled the trigger! Now that's how you get it done!” Sergeant Allen
Edison said, grinning.

“Think they'll send more?”

“No, and we've got a perfect place here,
far enough back from the corner to keep them from lobbing grenades. They're
screwed. They just don't know it yet,” Allen gloated. He didn't know how the
battle outside was going, or the rest of the station, but he was going to hold
his own.

“What's that sound?” someone asked
behind him. Allen looked around. No idea.”

...*...*...*...*...

Sergei lined up to the bulkhead opposite
the enemy. His IR could just make out the plasma field piece on the other side,
it was still super hot. The enemy's signatures were ghost like, clustered
around the Plasma weapon. “Our turn you bastards,” he hissed as he lowered his
weapons. He had two crew service tribarrel Gatling plasma guns attached to the
underside of each arm. Each barrel was sheathed in a cooling jacket to keep
them from overheating. He pulled the triggers, ignoring the overheat alarm as
they went to full bore.

Asazi and Panache came up behind him.
They looked at the fire chewing into the bulkhead and then lowered their own
weapons and added to it. In less than a second the bulkhead was cherry hot. A
half second later their concentrated fire had turned the center white hot.
Sergei grimaced a grin of rage as his visor polarized to block out the excess
light.

...*...*...*...*...

“I'm telling you, something...” the
Private looked around, cupping his hands to his ears. Finally he oriented on
the bulkhead to their right. “There,” he said pointing.

“What about it?” Sergeant Allen
demanded.

The Private put his ear to the bulkhead
and then screamed. He put his hands to it to push himself off and kept
screaming.

“What the hell's going on?” Allen demanded.
“The walls glowing!”

“Back off! Get Brian out of there!”
another Private said. He reached in and ripped the screaming Private away. The
man's hands and the side of his head were burned and melting. He was past the
point of sobbing in pain, half way to unconscious. “Oh shit! Plasma leak!” the
Private said, looking up. “Medic! We've got to get out of here!”

...*...*...*...*...

The Marine's weapon fire burst through
the superheated metal and into the plasma piece. Superheated molten metal
splattered the area. Some of the back side of the bulkhead spalled. But the
real fireworks went off when their rounds hit the plasma weapon and breached
its plasma bottle. The weapon's ammunition detonated in a fiery explosion.
Mostly contained by the tight walls, it had only three directions to go,
forward to the corner, back to the pirates, and through the small hole the
Marines had cut in the bulkhead.

...*...*...*...*...

Allen was scrambling to get his plasma
weapon out of there when the first rounds hit it. He had less than a second to
scream when it went off. The released micro-sun ripped through the tiny rent in
its armor and then expanded, super-heating the air around the weapon as it
expanded, consuming everything in the corridor for a thirty meter radius. The Horathian's
were consumed by the weapon, only Edison managed to get around the corner to
duck away.

“They're, they're like demons!” the
panicked Horathian screamed. “Fall back! Fall back!”

...*...*...*...*...

Asazi laughed as some of the splash came
back through the hole in the bulkhead. They ducked away, watching the bright
flare of plasma flame consume the clothing and furniture in the room. “I'm
melting, I'm melting,” she said in a false soprano as she watched a plastic
chair melt. “What a world, what a world...”

“Ah shut up. Come on, let's go find some
more to kill,” Panache said.

“Now you're talking,” Sergei growled.

...*...*...*...*...

They returned thirty seconds later. “You
get that out of your system?” Valenko asked mildly.

Sergei gave him a choppy nod.

“Don't do anything stupid like that
again,” the bear growled. Again the liger gave him a nod. Clive patted him on
the shoulder and then moved past him.

“Well? What do you have to say for
yourself?”

“It worked?” the liger said lamely, and
then shrugged.

“Indeed. But now we've got to find
another way around.”

“True.”

...*...*...*...*...

Panache was ever aware of the fighting,
doing her best to protect her squad mates. “Not again,” she murmured, seeing
visions of death on her first mission. She clacked her jaws hard. She wouldn't
fail again. Fonz's death had brought back a lot of nasty memories for her, but
she didn't have a chance to dwell on it, the fighting continued. “This time..
this time it will be different,” she vowed softly, clacking her mandibles and
gripping her weapon tightly. “I will not fail.”

...*...*...*...*...

Major Zimmer felt increasingly hemmed
in, trapped. He'd changed his headquarters twice in the past hour, always
moving back. The good news was that with the admiral dead he didn't have his
hands tied about doing damage to the station anymore. He did what he could in
fact, blowing plasma lines and killing any of the damn stationers he could
find.

But he knew he and his men were getting
increasingly desperate to find a way out. And unfortunately, there wasn't one.

...*...*...*...*...

Ensign Blackberry elf marine led a team
through the ducts. Sniping was going well, but it was more important to place
IED's and sensors.

"Try not to sound like a herd in
here!" he hissed, then switched to the internal chat as his point turned.
Ne'crid Star was a good private, hell of a grunt carrying their last grenade,
but did he have to walk like a human? Especially now, when they were near the
enemy?

The Ensign had emphasized speed over
stealth, that worried him now, he didn't have a hard and fast location of the
enemy. Just a general, “they are in this area.” He turned just in time to see
through the thin aluminum vent and down to meet the eyes of a Horathian looking
up at him.

He froze, goat like eyes going
fractionally wide as the human's blue eyes flicked to his, then away. He'd
thought he'd gotten away with being in the duct, but then the human lifted his
barrel in a fast motion and pulled the trigger.

"Shag your asses! MOVE!"
Blackberry swore as Gauss rounds tore the one millimeter thin duct apart.

The point looked back in time to see the
storm tearing apart the squad before he flung himself into the fork a few
centimeters ahead and rolled to let others get in behind him. He ducked
instinctively as rounds tore at the thin metal sheeting but then duty took
over. He turned and yanked at a three fingered hand that had grabbed the sharp
edge behind him. He squealed as the hand came free... with nothing attached. He
threw it away cursing and sobbing softly.

"Did we get them?" a voice
snarled. Jasper looked up carefully, shining a light in. Wide eyes looked back
at him. He fired again. The elf medic twisted as an impaler dart hammered into
his torso. He fell, and rolled onto his back, supine. He looked up in time to
see a falling boot tread.

The elf point Ne'crid Star snarled,
peeking around the corner with a fiber optic scope. The squad was gone, just
gone. He pointed the tip of the endoscope down to see the gaping hole and
Horathian's busily stomping on what remained of his team. He didn't need the
IFF to know he was the last.

"Bastards," the elf said
softly, pulling his last remaining grenade off his back. It was a human
grenade, about a kilogram in weight and a four centimeter brown egg. His
enhanced strength pulled the pin before Star dropped it to the deck. He pushed
with both hands, sending the gift to the hole.

The grenade tumbled down the chute. The
Horathian's near the hole looked up in time to see the dark object fall. Jasper's
eyes went wide. He started to shout grenade just as the egg went off, tearing
him and the men around him apart.

"That's for my team," the Elf
snarled, turning and resting against the side of the duct briefly. He was
tempted to call it in, but knew better, there might be ears listening. Instead
he dropped to all fours and carefully padded back to the last known location of
the others. Some things had to be told in person anyway.