The Conscripts: Fight or Die (Blood War Book 3) (28 page)

“What have you got back there, Toland?”

“More of those stupid VF robotic whatever-they-were-called. It was attacking the Rifts’ and Wolfs’ rear. Those damned things are still running around trying to find targets. Gee, Chief, I wonder why none of the smart guys thought the Xotoli would have weapons that would reprogram robots on the fly.”

“Gotta admit that it is pretty fucking cool,” Odaka said.

“Yeah, for us up here. But I doubt the guys on the ground know any jokes about those fucking things,” Lee said.

Toland was firing again. “Those things are everywhere. It’s good target practice, and I like the way they blow up.”

Lee pulled the ship up and began to orbit, waiting for the next opportunity to make a run on the LZs. He had completed his first orbit when Toland said, “Chief, could you go back over the dune field? I thought I saw something.”

“’Brids?”

“I’m not sure, so let’s stay nice and high.”

Lee banked the ship around and reduced the speed so Toland could get a good look.

“Well?”

“Unless I’m seeing things, I think there is a platoon-sized unit stuck out here all by itself. If you come back around and approach from what will be your four o’clock, I think you can see them.”

Lee banked the ship around, rotated the engines, and slowed the speed down. Sure enough, he could see what looked like a platoon-sized unit in a perimeter defense with hybrids attacking them in force.

“What in the fuck are they doing out here all by their lonesome? They are in some deep shit,” Odaka said.

“If I remember my briefing right, the first wave of Von Fleet units were supposed to take each flank of the crater. Looks like these guys were just doing their jobs when no one else did.”

“Boss, they got more company than they can handle. They need some help,” Toland said.

“Where? Don’t just say something like that without a direction!” Lee snapped.

“Your six o’clock.”

Lee spun the ship around but saw nothing except the dune field, with the dry riverbed just beyond it and finally the ridgeline.

“I got nothing.”

“Try infrared.”

When he changed his display to infrared, he saw what Toland was talking about. The firefight showed up clearly. He saw at least a hundred hybrids down with more behind them. Now, out of yet another direction, he saw at first a few figures moving fast out of the riverbed, then tens of figures and finally hundreds. The Xotoli were going to try and overrun the Von Fleet LZ. Their numbers continued to grow.

“Got them now. Odaka, get naval gunfire on that before they scatter.”

“Roger that.”

“Chief, that platoon down there won’t even be a speed bump to those ’brids. We need to extract them. They won’t last until naval gunfire can reach them. We need to do the dance on those fucking ’brids.”

Lee looked at the additional waves of hybrids racing across the plain and now reaching the beginning of the dunes.

“You bucking for a medal?”

“Gee, Chief, I’m only a gunner. You’re the one who'll be getting the medal,” Toland said.

Lee banked the ship and came roaring in, his minis firing. Odaka added missiles to the mix and Toland worked her mini. Hundreds of hybrids were ground up in the concentrated fire from the Mike boat. Lee pulled the nose up and banked hard.

“Lock on! Lock on!”

“Somebody down there has a shoulder-fired weapon. You on this, Odaka?”

“Roger that.”

A rocket streaked from the ground as Lee was coming around for another run. Odaka fired chaff and the rocket chased the chaff. Then he added a ride-along rocket that followed the recorded heat signature of the hybrid’s rocket back to its firing position. There was an orange blossom of an explosion.

“Bingo, Chief!” Toland said.

“Take that, you fuck,” Odaka said with real satisfaction in his voice.

Lee dove again for another run. The metal storm roared into life, its orange flames lighting up the night as the red line of tracers ripped through the hybrids. Lee made two more runs, but the hybrids had scattered and they weren’t able to hit as many as they had with their first runs. The platoon was still there, firing their weapons.

“Chief, they won’t last much longer. There are just too many of them. We need to make a pickup,” Toland said.

“Have we got time?” Lee asked.

“It will be close, but we might make it. They happen to have destroyers in the right orbit, so it won’t be long before they begin.”

“Okay, tell them we’re going in.”

“I love it when you get brave with my ass,” Odaka said.

“Shut up. I’ll give you my metal. Toland, can you ready the compartment for them?”

Toland would have to change the troop compartment over from drop configuration to a transport configuration, something that usually took half an hour. She had about five minutes.

“On the way, but don’t wait on me.”

“Hang on, here we go,” Lee said as he banked the ship and dove toward the dune field and the isolated platoon.

135th Penal Battalion

3rd Company

First Platoon

Fenes had never seen a Mike boat and what it could do. It had torn hundreds of hybrids into pieces, and in spite of that they still came. There weren’t as many though and now there were gaps in the waves. The platoon was firing as fast they could pull the trigger. There seemed to be an endless supply of hybrids. Even with the Mike boat’s help, Fenes didn’t know how much longer they could last. They had a number of casualties already.

“Hey! Hey, uh, we got a ship coming in,” a platoon member in the rear said.

“That’s not the way you report—” Striker said, then stopped. “I’ll be a son of a bitch. Somebody’s been living right.”

Fenes turned and saw a Mike boat approaching their position, its engines rotating for a landing. They were coming to take them out of here. First they had saved their asses, now they were going to get them out. He had turned to get his squad organized for a load-up when someone yelled, “Hybrids!”

Fenes turned just in time to see an armored hybrid jump over the rock formation in the front of their position. Without thinking he turned and fired. The burst caught the hybrid in the chest and threw him backward and to the ground.

All of the lessons that Ura and the others had ground into him through the grueling boot camp suddenly came back in a rush. He didn’t have to think. He just reacted. Mati had taught him that the hybrids’ armor was good and you could not trust that one would stay down if you knocked it down with rail rounds. He jerked his axe off his leg, snapped it open, and jumped on top of the hybrid. Before it could move, he drove the axe deep into its helmet. Blood spattered everywhere. He slammed the axe back into it's bracket on his leg. He grabbed his rail and stood. Slowly he began to back away from the hybrid’s body his rail at the ready, waiting for the next hybrid to appear over the edge of the crater.

He glanced back and saw the platoon moving quickly toward the rear. There was a large flat area between their dune and the next one. The Mike boat was coming down in that flat area. It was so close now, but Fenes knew if he turned his back and ran there was a good chance another hybrid would be on his ass, so he continued to walk backward, watching for hybrids and listening as the Mike boat got closer. A hybrid jumped over the top of the dune. Fenes knocked it down with a three-round burst to the helmet. He continued to back up.

“You all right?” Striker asked.

Fenes glanced to his right. Striker was organizing the rest of the platoon for a load-up.

“Check. Is that boat down yet?”

“Negative. Thirty seconds.”

Suddenly Fenes was knocked to the ground by a blow. There was a huge body on top of him. Where in the fuck had this one come from? He twisted underneath the hybrid as Mati had taught him, just in time to grab it's arm as it raised it for a blow with a laser knife. He held it off, grabbing for something on its armor to get some kind of purchase so he could get some leverage and reverse the mount. He wasn’t finding it—that glowing laser knife was moving closer and closer. Then the hybrid’s head exploded and it fell limp on top of him. He looked up and saw Minga. She had seen he was in trouble came to help. She put out her hand and pulled him to his feet.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Where’s Striker?”

“Guiding the boat in.”

“More hybrids!” someone yelled.

Fenes and Minga raced to the top of the dune that had been the rear of their position. They turned and threw themselves down. They could now see the wave of hybrids racing toward the Von Fleet LZ clearly without any magnification by their faceplates. More and more of them were peeling off of the wave and heading toward them. The hybrids that had attacked them must have reported their position.

“How long?” Fenes said.

“One minute,” Striker responded.

Fenes could hear the roar of the Mike boat’s engines now. Before it landed, the boat let loose with its mini-rails, throwing thousands of rounds into the wave of hybrids, literally ripping them to shreds. But they were in the back of the wave. The other gun runs had been too far away for Fenes to see the detail of what a fifty-caliber round did to a body, it looked literally as if the hybrid had been put through a meat grinder.

More hybrids appeared over the dune. Fenes and Minga fired almost as one. Two hybrids fell, only to be replaced by two more. Then a third rifle barked. Fenes looked up to see Ardan standing over them, firing his rail into the hybrids.

The engines of the Mike boat were kicking up a sandstorm as the rest of the platoon ran onto the ramp. The over the ships loudspeaker a voice said.

“You guys planning on coming with us, or do you want to stay?”

“Very fucking funny,” Fenes said as he and Minga stood and ran back to the waiting boat. Rounds from the hybrids kicked up sand around them as they raced for the boat, but Striker had a whole fire team kneeling and providing covering fire for them. Fenes ran to the rear ramp, then made sure the covering fire team got on board before him and Striker. They were the last ones in.

The Mike boat took off even before the rear ramp was completely closed. With its nose down, it gained altitude. As it did, Fenes could hear the roar of the minis in the nose of the ship as they fired into the attacking wave even over the roar of the engines. Then the rear gunner was firing her mini and Fenes was covered with spent shell casings as they cascaded out of her weapon and onto the deck of the boat. He had to crawl to a seat, the angle of the boat was so extreme. He could hear rounds from the hybrids banging against the side of the ship as it rose. Finally, when they gained enough altitude, the ship leveled off.

The gunner raised her helmet’s visor and said with a big smile, “Welcome aboard. Now that was fucking festive. I do hope you enjoyed tonight’s entertainment. Now if you will just relax, it will be a short ride to your destination.”

Fenes could think of other things to call what had just happened. He would have said something, but his mouth was too dry with fear.

Sui-Ren System

Chika

Naval Special Warfare Squadron

Mike Boat 79

“Okay, hero. We rescued these guys, now what do we do with them? We can’t take them back to one of the LZs. They're not secure,” Odaka said.

Zenes Lee looked over at his copilot. He had a point. They didn’t know who was in their troop compartment. Lee switched to the loudspeaker and said, “Will the person in charge plug in to the ship’s intercom? It’s on the cockpit bulkhead.”

It was a few seconds before a voice said, “This is Staff Sergeant Striker. You guys saved our asses. We owe you a big one.”

“Roger that, Striker. I am Chief Petty Officer Lee, the pilot of this bus. Who are you guys?”

“We are the first platoon of the 3rd Company of the 135th Penal Battalion.”

“All I can say is you were the only guys fighting out there. The three LZs are pinned down. We can’t take you back to the Von Fleet LZ. So give me a few minutes to figure out what to do with you guys.”

Odaka looked over at him. “Penal battalion?” he said.

“Yeah, so? Are you forgetting the Legion and how many of them were given a Legion tour or jail? So fuck that. The real question is what do we do with them.”

“We can’t make any more gun runs with them in the back. So until we find a home for our lost souls, we are out of the fight,” Odaka said.

“Let me think.”

“You just talked about the answer,” Toland chimed in.

“What are you talking about?” Lee snapped. The last thing he needed was another smart remark from Toland.

“What unit is all former Legionnaires and could care less if these guys are from a penal battalion?”

Odaka turned his head and looked at Lee. “The Raiders.”

“And where are the Raiders?” Toland said.

“The spaceport,” Odaka said.

Toland was right. The Raiders didn’t care who you were or where you came from, only that you fought. These guys in the back had just proved they could do that, and the spaceport was the most secure of the other LZs. They could drop them off and be back in the fight in no time.

It was the ideal solution, but how did he coordinate the drop-off with the Raiders? They had the habit of shooting first and sorting things out later. It came with the territory. So who did he contact to make that decision?

When in danger, when in doubt, call to the top—the person in charge.

“Dragon One to Raider Actual,” Lee said.

There was a long pause before a voice came up.

“This is Raider Actual, go.”

Lee looked over at Odaka. That was not the colonel’s voice. He knew they had lost a lot of officers—they must be reaching way down the chain of command, because he didn’t recognize the voice at all.

“Raider, we just picked up a platoon that was stuck out on a limb, and none of the other LZs are secure. We’re looking for a home for our friends,” Lee explained.

“Dragon One, if you think the spaceport is secure, you’ve got another think coming.”

“Roger that. But believe it or not, you’re the most secure spot.”

“Dragon One, I don’t need a platoon that I have to babysit. I need fighters up here. Can they fight?”