Funny thing, she had followed him to the ground and all the way he'd looked into those frightened eyes. In the compound lights, he'd seen her hair falling around him as he lay on the ground. Reddish with a hint of brown, it had cast rainbows in the floodlights
As his world grayed, he'd wanted to tell her not to be afraid, that things would be all right. But they had gone, the man dragging her away while blood bubbled up in Sohnar's mouth, filling his lungs and trachea.
Alone, the world going dim, he realized he'd smeared more blood on her armor as he dragged her down.
Sohnar could barely hear the gentle voice calling to him. A faint sting came from his face. Grayness drew close around him. sinking…
Division First Mykroft sighed and crossed his arms as the psych interrogator ceased to slap the boy and looked up.
"Condition?" Mykroft demanded.
"Dead, sir. This time, I think he's too far gone. We might have dumped too many stimulants into his system as it was." The interrogator checked one of the instruments hooked to Sohnar's claylike flesh.
Mykroft chewed his lip and nodded. "Very well, we got all we could out of him, I guess. Woman and a man, hmm? Must have used a vibraknife to get through his armor that way."
The interrogation officer looked up. "At least we know they did something to that alarm system."
Mykroft ground his teeth and frowned. "Indeed. At the same time, they murdered most of the First Division commanders. Thank the Blessed Gods they didn't come after the Second." He paused, as if talking to himself. "That would have been me."
The interrogation officer calmly shut down the systems pumping blood through Sohnar's body and stood. "In the meantime, what will happen to First Division?"
"That's up to the Minister of Defense. Of course, we won't let any hay grow under our feet in the meantime. We can turn the situation here to our advantage by…" Mykroft caught himself. Irritated, he gave the interrogation officer a blistering look. "Just like an interrogation man Third. You're full of too many damned questions. You've got me answering them now."
The Interrogation Third fought a smile. "Yes, sir."
"And put out an arrest order for a big dark-skinned man and a woman with the description he gave us. Damn you, Sohnar, you died too quickly." Mykroft shook his head at the corpse and left, boots clicking hollowly on the hospital floor.
"Hauws! Break five men to the left through that gully! Move, Gods Rot it! NOW!" Sinklar bellowed into his comm. That slight sensation of unreality gave him a split second warning to throw himself face first into the rocky earth as concussion and gravity flux raised havoc with his ears and balance. The ground heaved under him.
Dirt and rocks pelted his body in a clattering rain, bouncing off his armor.
Sinklar shook his head and wiggled his jaw to clear his ears as he struggled up on all fours. Teeth gritted, he refused to trust his feet after the effects of the disrupter detonation. He glared angrily up at the raw sky.
The battered ridge that the Second Section of the First Division called home had been turned into a blasted no man's land of trenches, foxholes, and bunkers that he and his Groups had gouged out of the resisting Targan soil. They lived among cratered and pulverized rocks. Smoke, intermixed with dust, drifted across it while laser and blaster fire shot lines of color through the haze.
"Hauws? Did you get that?" Sinklar demanded, a cackle of blaster bolts sounding like burning air over his head.
"Affirmative." Hauws' voice came back. A hollow thump from a mortar reverberated through the system. "They just got started. Uh. hold it. I hear firing from their direction. Good call, Sink."
"Sink?" Shiksta's voice came through, interrupting. "I think we've spotted something headed toward Kap's flank. Might be ten Rebels. Request permission to lay down a dispersing fire under signal seven conditions as per the manual, sir."
"Shik! Damn you, I don't care what the manual says. Fry them bastards if you can! Shoot! And from now on, I don't want to hear what the holy gawddamn book says. You're up here to kill Targans and keep the pass closed to resupply efforts! Now, shut up and SHOOT!"
"Yes, sir." Shik sounded contrite.
Sinklar shook his head, face contorting. "Hauws, be ready to back those boys up if things get too hot in that gully. That's one of your weak points."
Sinklar got slowly to his feet and managed to take a few tentative steps. Through the smoke and dust of his battleground, he began to look over the situation. Two Targans fled Hauws' gully. One tumbled as his shoulder erupted in a puff of pink. Good shot, that.
"Mac? How you doing?"
"Five casualties Sink. The good news is that from where we're dug in here, we can see about forty of their dead. They keep sending advances out into that hollow down there. Why are they doing that?" Mac sounded genuinely confused. "Every time they trot out, we tear hell out of them!"
Sinklar's cracked lips curled up in a wicked smile. "Answer's easy, Mac. If a column advances in the open,
what's the holy gawddamn book say an appropriate defensive response is?"
"Uh, let's see. Advance and flank, right?"
Fire lanced from Shik's heavy ordnance into a splintered cliff side to the right of Kap's position. A vortex of blaster bolts mixed with frag bombs and sonic shells left the mountain erupting dust, shattered rock, and, with a little hope, blasted Targan bodies. Maybe Shik was learning after all.
"That's right," Sinklar agreed. "Makes you think they got a book, too, doesn't it? The rest of you guys hear that?"
He felt the tingle, pitched face first into the dirt, and waited while a second disrupter blast shook their position. Sink pulled his face out of the ground, spit mud from his mouth, and grimaced at the grit and sand that crunched in his teeth.
"Shik? You get a trajectory on that last shot?" Sinklar demanded, wiping clinging grime from his face.
"Affirmative. We're computing for return fire now."
"Atta boy, Shik. You stuff a soic shell down that thing and we'll all buy the beer."
Someone laughed on the comm.
Sinklar studied the layout of his people. His eyes traced each of the fortified positions.
"Ayms? You got anybody covering that slope on your right flank?"
Ayms cleared his throat. " 'Firmative, Sink. Three men. Dug them in just like you said. So far they've sniped off two or three Targ-ets who tried to sneak up there with some sort of back packs. Probably some sonic explosive or other. If they could send a big enough seismic shock through this ground, they might stun us enough to overrun the position."
Sinklar nodded to himself. "Now, that's thinking, Ayms. You read that in the holy gawddamn book?"
Laughter spattered through the comm like static. "Nope, Sink. Thought that up on my own."
"You'll make sergeant yet, Ayms. Stick with it."
Sinklar yawned and blinked at the fatigue in his eyes before crawling up to a rocky point where he could look down over Mac's position.
Shik's heavy stuff erupted in a barrage that speared the sky with streaks of light as rockets and mortar fire laced over a distant ridge. Centering
his spotting goggles on the
ridge, he could see rock slides break loose and trees shake— and that was on this side.
"Think I got that big gun of theirs," Shik muttered selfconsciously.
They waited, occasional shots lacing the slanting light of evening. No more gravity shells fell.
Sinklar heard gravel crunch and turned to look, seeing Gretta climbing up the slope to drop down next to him.
"How's the war?" Sinklar asked around a wry smile.
Her blue eyes twinkled in a dirt-streaked face. Her teeth gleamed white behind her sensual lips. Strands of mahogany-brown hair had slipped out from under the helmet.
"You heard Third Section is pinned down? Calling for orbital bombardment? fifth Section is running, shooting, and running some more. LCs are supposed to go in and pull them out after dark. That leaves us surrounded."