Upon hearing the initial explosion, followed by a groundshaking rumble, General Mortimer Kobbi swore bitterly. He was a third of the way back along the column at the time, giving one of a thousand pep talks, when the hammer fell. And it didn’t take a military genius to know what would happen next, as at least two dozen well-concealed snipers opened fi?re from the concealment of the snow-covered rocks high above, and Kobbi sent his T-2 racing toward the head of the column. Two crawlers, both equipped with dozer blades had been given the lead to deal with that sort of situation, but Major Perko was waiting with more bad news as the general arrived. “I’m sorry, sir,” Perko said, as Kobbi dismounted. “The blast was timed to hit the dozers. One survived—but the other was swept away.”
From where he was standing, just in front of the quad that had been positioned immediately behind the crawlers, Kobbi could see the shoulder-high pile of snow and debris that blocked the highway. Trees had been caught up in the avalanche, along with large boulders and a host of smaller rocks. A powerful engine rumbled as the surviving dozer attacked the blockage with a big shining blade. What originally had been isolated gunshots escalated into a full-scale fi?refi?ght as well-hidden Ramanthian soldiers fi?red down into the column, and legionnaires, marines, and Seebos fi?red up into the rocks. Slugs pinged off the dozer and made a mosquito-like whine as they angled away.
The avalanche was bad luck, terrible luck, given what was at stake. The rescue fl?eet wasn’t on the way yet, but they would be soon, and it was imperative to get the column down out of the mountains quickly. Civilians would be taken off fi?rst, followed by support forces, meaning those units that hadn’t been sent up into the mountains. That was just the nature of things. But Kobbi was determined to evacuate combat troops as well. “Okay,” the little general said grimly.
“We’ll work with what we have. . . . Keep the dozer going. I’ll round up a couple hundred CVAs and arm them with shovels. They can pitch in and help clear the slide.”
Perko nodded, opened his mouth to reply, and jerked spastically as a bullet smashed through the bridge of his nose. That was when a corporal threw Kobbi facedown on the highway and took the follow-up shot right between the shoulder blades. His body armor was suffi?cient to stop the slug, but it left a bruise the legionnaire would remember for days to come. Assuming he lived that long.
“Thanks,” Kobbi said, as he rolled out from under the corporal. “I owe you a beer. Let me jack into your radio. Those bastards need to die.”
Ten minutes later Second Lieutenant Eyeblink Thinkfast and a team of Naa warriors drawn from a dozen units started up the mountainside. It was a development the Ramanthian snipers should have been worried about but weren’t. Mainly because the rank-and-fi?le bugs were completely ignorant of the physiological and cultural attributes associated with their enemies.
So they were unaware of the fact that the fur-clad legionnaires considered anything above ten below to be balmy, preferred to fi?ght barefoot because they could sense heat differentials through the soles of their feet, and didn’t need to actually see their opponents because they could smell chitin polish, wing wax, and gun oil from a hundred feet away. Nor were the insectoid Ramanthians aware of the speed with which the lightly armed Naa could climb, the almost total silence with which they moved, or the mind-numbing ferocity that they brought with them.
Some of the legionnaires fell, plucked off the steep slope by well-aimed bullets, but not many. Because as Thinkfast and half a dozen others came upslope, they were also moving from side to side, utilizing every bit of cover that was available.
Then they were there, on the same level as the Ramanthian sharpshooters, and that was when the real bloodletting began. It was knife and pistol work for the most part, carried out by warriors who had not only been raised to kill, but had grudges to settle on behalf of all the legionnaires killed on Gamma-014. They were like ghosts as they slipped between the rocks, slitting throats, and fi?ring from point-blank range. No quarter was asked, and no quarter was given, as more than thirty Ramanthians were systematically put to death. Finally, with his uniform soaked in gore, it was Thinkfast who put in the call to Kobbi. “The heights are ours, sir. . . . We will hold them until relieved. Over.”
“Well done, Lieutenant,” Kobbi said, as he stared up at the tiny fi?gures above. “Once we get back to Algeron, I’m going to hang every medal I can think of on you and your warriors. Do you have prisoners? Over.”
“No, sir,” came the answer. “We forgot to take any. Over.”
“Well done,” the general replied. “Six-One out.”
ABOARD THE FREIGHTER XINGLONG, OFF PLANET GAMMA-014,THE CLONE REPUBLIC
Maylo Chien-Chu felt a brief moment of nausea as the sturdy Xinglong (Star Dragon) exited hyperspace and entered enemy-held space. Unlike most of the more than six thousand vessels that were systematically fl?ooding the local system, the boxy Xinglong was ideal for the rescue mission, because she had been built for the purpose of transporting cargo to and from Class III planets like Gamma-014. That was just one of the many lines of business Chien-Chu Enterprises was engaged in. Owing to the sometimes lawless conditions out along the rim, the freighter was armed. However, four medium-duty energy cannons and two missile launchers weren’t going to make much of an impression on anything larger than a military gunboat. Maylo had long been a pilot, and a good one, so rather than take up space that a civilian or soldier might otherwise use, she was conning the ship herself. The rest of the skeleton crew consisted of Angie Brisco, her somewhat cantankerous middle-aged copilot, Hal Nortero, the ship’s cigar-chomping engineer, and Koso Orlo-Ka, the Xinglong’s Hudathan loadmaster, all of whom had volunteered for the mission even if Brisco liked to complain a lot. “Damn,” the narrow-faced copilot exclaimed sarcastically, as the freighter emerged from hyperspace one planetary diameter off Gamma-014’s surface.
“Couldn’t you cut it any closer?”
Brisco’s lack of tact was the main reason why she had been let go by a dozen companies before fi?nally fi?nding a home within Chien-Chu Enterprises—a company where skill was valued over and above political acumen, not to mention the fact that her shipmates had plenty of quirks themselves. So even though Maylo was president of the company, she responded with a grin. “I would if I could, Angie. Now hang on, we’re going in.”
The Ramanthians were beginning to respond by then, but not fast enough to stop the steady stream of incoming vessels, most of which were clearly civilian. That didn’t make sense to them—and was the source of considerable confusion. That wouldn’t last, of course, but Maylo intended to take advantage of the situation while it was possible. The plan was to take clone civilians off Gamma-014 fi?rst, ferry them back to Nav Point CSM-9703, and off-load them to the big liners that were waiting there.
Those ships that could would return to Gamma-014 to take military personnel off. Many of whom were still fi?ghting their way down out of the mountains. The whole process was going to take days, and the bugs would be expecting the second, third, and fourth waves, so casualties would be high.
“So, what the hell are you waiting for?” Brisco demanded impatiently. “Let’s put this rust bucket down. We’ve got people to load.”
The Xinglong bucked madly as she entered the atmosphere. “Yes, ma’am,” Maylo said agreeably. “We do indeed.”
The refugee camp was a huge, sprawling affair, that had originally been a sports complex, before the Ramanthians took control of Gamma-014 and converted the facility into a prisoner of war internment camp. That was where Mama Dee and what remained of her scruffy “family” had been forced to go. Having been locked inside, the POWs were left to fi?nd a place for themselves in the muddy fi?eld, where thousands of displaced civilians were forced to eat, sleep, and shit within a few inches of each other. A miserable existence but one that most of the so-called accidental people had been able to survive largely because they were used to extreme privation.