Asbaran Solutions (The Revelations Cycle Book 2) Page 26

  Chapter Thirty

  Second Platoon, First Company, Blood Drinkers

  “Sergeant, I have contacts approaching from the northeast,” the radar operator, Corporal Sep-Ga, reported.

  “Is it the humans?” Sergeant Creg-An asked.

  “I don’t know,” the corporal replied. “I don’t think so. They aren’t jumping like the humans do.”

  “Then it is our First Platoon. Hold your fire; Staff Sergeant Cahl-Ga said he was sending it to assist in finishing off the humans.”

  Second Squad, Asbaran Solutions

  “I’ve got movement on the left,” Sergeant Marin radioed as the platoon continued its run toward the Besquith armor. With five anti-air APCs in the force, it was a little slower to run than jump, but ultimately it was probably safer as it didn’t highlight them. “They’re on the ground, and they look like they’re converging with us.”

  “Does it look like the Colonel and the other squad?” Turk asked. “They should be coming from that direction.”

  “I can’t tell.”

  Turk shook his head. Something didn’t feel right. First Squad had already recovered the pilot and were rejoining them for the assault? He shrugged. There weren’t any Besquith in that direction; they’d all been wiped out by the dropships. First Squad had been able to use their jumpjets to get the pilots; that must be how they had moved faster than his squad. That had to be it.

  He refocused on his objective. He could see the enemy armor illuminated in his thermal sights. He didn’t want to question why they hadn’t taken any fire, for fear of jinxing himself; the Besquith were obviously tied up with the White Company and simply hadn’t seen his platoon yet.

  “The group to our left is Besquith!”

  “Shit! Fire!”

  Second Platoon, First Company, Blood Drinkers

  “Sergeant, I have weapons firing in the force to the northeast,” Corporal Sep-Ga reported.

  “Who are they shooting at?” Sergeant Creg-An asked.

  “They are…yes! They are shooting at each other!”

  “What? Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” the corporal replied. “Wait a minute…Some of them are jumping now. There are humans in that group!”

  “Don’t talk! Shoot them! Shoot them now!”

  “But Sergeant, they are intermingled with our troops. How will we separate them?”

  “Don’t try to separate them. Kill them all!”

  The White Company, Barracks, Besquith Base

  “Colonel Moretti, it appears the Asbaran troops are attacking the armor!”

  The colonel risked a glance; sure enough, most of the armor had turned and was firing in the opposite direction at a battle occurring to the northeast. What a cluster! There appeared to be several groups, all firing at each other indiscriminately.

  Although the situation to the northeast was confused, at best, there was one force he knew incontrovertibly to be the enemy, and this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

  “Asbaran won’t last long in the open,” he radioed. “This is our chance.” He rose to his feet and triggered his jumpjets, launching himself toward the enemy armor. “Attack!”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Second Squad, Asbaran Solutions

  Not only were there more humans than Besquith, Turk saw, his force was also better armed and armored than the aliens. They should be able to—

  Sergeant Cohen blew up as the green beam of the particle accelerator cannon enveloped him, the molecules of his suit and body unable to contain the energy unleashed on them. The tank was firing on his force!

  “Go to close quarters with the Besquith!” Turk radioed. “We’ve got to use them as a shield from the armor!”

  Turk jumped, landing in the middle of the Besquith platoon, and immediately had several of the enemy grappling with his suit, trying to bring him down. Although more survivable than the tank’s main weapon, dead was dead, and he fought furiously to break out of their grasp.

  He fired a laser blast to the face of the attacker on the right that burned through the enemy’s face shield. The Besquith dropped away, freeing his arm. He kicked the alien in front of him as his sword blade snapped into place; the enemy came back at him, and Turk eviscerated the creature. Turing to the left, he thrust out again with the blade. Besquith armor was no match for the polysteel blade, and his weapon easily pierced the alien’s chest piece; pulling down and away, he gutted the alien, and it collapsed in a lifeless, bloody heap.

  Having achieved some space to work, he turned to find another Besquith approaching him, but it was shredded by the antiaircraft shells from one of the APCs.

  Fuck! The armor was still firing on them! As close as they already were to the enemy vehicles, they couldn’t run; they’d be shot down from behind.

  “Disengage and attack the armor!” he ordered, “It’s our—”

  The tank’s beam weapon passed through him, and he exploded.

  Asbaran First Squad, East of the Starport, Besquith Base

  “Damn it!” Nigel yelled, kicking the side of the rocky outcropping again.

  Mason strode over and grabbed the officer. “Sir! We need to help Second Squad.” He spun the officer around and pointed to the southwest. The sky glowed with a variety of green, red, and blue flashes. “Turk took Second Squad to help the White Company. I was listening to their net, and they need help.”

  It took a few seconds for Nigel to process the information, and the moments went by agonizingly slowly for Mason. “You’re right,” Nigel finally said. “Let’s go.”

  “First Squad, follow me!” Mason ordered. If the night sky was any indication, the battle was more intense than ever. “Now!” Mason said, triggering his jumpjets. The squad jumped nearly as one to aid their comrades.

  The White Company, Starport, Besquith Base

  Colonel Moretti landed on the deck of the Zuul tank with a grenade already in his hand. Arming the weapon, he looked for an open port to drop it into the vehicle. Before he could find one, the APC next to the tank turned and fired. He was swept off the tank, dead before he hit the ground.

  “No!” First Sergeant Valenti yelled, inbound to the tank. He altered his jump and landed on the deck of the APC instead. The turret of the APC spun toward him, but he avoided the barrels of the antiaircraft system. Seeing the vision slit in the turret was too small for a grenade, he pulled out a smaller flash-bang charge. Arming it, he slid it through the port. There was a shout and then a flash of light through the slit. The concussion would have been deafening in the close environment, if not deadly, and the magnesium-based charge caught something on the interior on fire. Smoke began pouring from the vision slit, and Valenti jumped from the vehicle just before it exploded.

  Corporal Ewald landed behind another of the APCs and swept the back of the vehicle with his minigun. Designed for personnel, the hyper-fragmentation bullets didn’t penetrate; instead, they shattered and ricocheted, sending thousands of pieces of mini-shrapnel to rain down on the battle area.

  “Piece of shit,” Ewald muttered, switching to the anti-armor reservoir. The turret started to turn so he changed his aim point and triggered the rotary machine gun. The armor-piercing bullets penetrated the side of the turret, scything through the Besquith unlucky enough to be inside it. He aimed lower and fired the weapon through the back of the APC. One of the bullets hit something explosive inside, and the sides of the APC bulged outward as it detonated.

  Turning, Ewald fired into the back of another APC. He had fired another 100 rounds, destroying it, when one of the close-in lasers from the tank speared through his head, killing him.

  Second Squad, Asbaran Solutions

  “Disengage and attack the armor! It’s our—”

  Private Handley saw the beam weapon in the corner of his monitor, and then the explosion of metal and red as Turk exploded. He dove to the left to evade the beam, and rolled back to his feet in time to see his squad leader, Staf
f Sergeant Jill Cox, similarly destroyed.

  The tank’s lasers and the APCs’ antiaircraft MACs chewed through both Besquith and human troopers, and Private Handley saw his comrades falling like wheat before the scythe.

  “Jump!” Staff Sergeant Elizabeth Kaine screamed, and all of the remaining humans went airborne.

  Optimized for anti-air, the APCs reached out to swat the humans from the sky. 12 humans launched themselves into the teeth of the enemy armor; five were still alive to land among the vehicles.

  One of the few soldiers with missiles, Private Handley landed to the left of the formation. Too close for the missiles’ safeties, he removed them, and set the missiles to arm upon emergence from their tubes. Touching down, he fired a volley of three into the closest APC, and was blown backward when it exploded in his face.

  The White Company, Starport, Besquith Base

  “Vaffanculo!” Private Bianchi yelled, diving to the side as one of the tank’s lasers targeted him. He rolled to the side and came up on one knee. Triggering his missile launcher, he fired one at the tank. Although it blew off the laser, it barely scratched the paint on the massive vehicle.

  “Kill the APC,” First Sergeant Valenti ordered, grabbing the private and turning him toward the remaining antiaircraft vehicle.

  The private fired his last two missiles. One glanced off the glacis and spun off to explode harmlessly; the second hit the joint between the turret and the main body, blowing the turret from the vehicle.

  “Everyone attack the tank!” Valenti used the emergency override to push his order to the force, and the remaining members of the force fired everything they had at the tank.

  The commander of the tank obviously realized the danger he was in. With a lurch, the tank accelerated from its position, causing many of the troopers’ shots to miss. As it broke free from the remaining humans, its turret spun and began firing its beam weapon back at the Asbaran force. Private Emma Holt and Sergeant Charles Tucker disappeared as the beam played through the group.

  Valenti dove to the side as the beam settled on Private Ricci. As it moved on, only Ricci’s armored legs remained. Valenti charged the tank, knowing he had to do something to stop it, but dodged to the side as another armored figure landed in front of him.

  Sergeant Carlos Marin pulled out a grenade, armed it, and triggered his jumpjets again. He flew up to the barrel of the tank and threw the grenade in as the weapon fired. The turret and Sergeant Marin were both atomized in the resulting explosion.

  Asbaran First Squad, East of the Starport, Besquith Base

  “Fuck,” a voice said as First Squad landed at the site of the armored battle. The pieces of the vehicles were readily identifiable; those of the people who had been killed were not. A handful of White Company soldiers were performing coups de grâce on the wounded Besquith troops.

  Nigel landed next to one of the two Asbaran soldiers he could see on the battlefield. “Where is the rest of Second Squad?” he asked.

  “You’re looking at them sir,” Private ‘JR’ Handley said. “Staff Sergeant Howe and I are the only ones left.” He picked up a small piece of metal from the ferrocrete. “I think this was Sergeant Marin.”

  Tears brimmed in Nigel’s eyes. He had been too late. Again. Too late to save the pilot, and now too late to save the platoon. He should have come here first. Inside his suit, tears trickled down his cheeks as he went to find Colonel Moretti, but could only find First Sergeant Valenti.

  “Where’s Colonel Moretti?” Nigel asked.

  “He didn’t make it, sir. He died attacking the tank. We were victorious, but at great cost.”

  “I’m going to make this worthwhile,” Nigel said. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to make it right.”

  Nigel dove to the right as something went past the side of his head. He readied his rifle as he spun through the air, and found himself aiming at a small stream of water emanating from the ground. He safed his weapon again, taking in the irony; the sprinkler was watering a patch of ground where the grass had been completely burned off in the earlier firebombing.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Commander’s Office, HQ Building, Asbaran Base, Moorhouse

  Corporal Cindy ‘Shrewlet’ Epard knocked tentatively on the open door, interrupting the conversation Mason and Nigel were having on how best to deal with their employers. “Come in,” Nigel ordered.

  “Hi, sir,” Shrewlet said as she entered the cabin. “I’ve been working on translating the papers we found in the Besquith headquarters building.”

  “What did you find?” Nigel asked.

  “Well, Sergeant Bush was our intel guy, and he had a lot more training on the translation software than I do, but I have been able to figure out a few things. I’ve got to tell you, though, it hasn’t been easy, and I may have missed some things. The Besquith leader was burning a number of documents, and they were all mixed up. I don’t even know why he was burning most of them, as they referenced pretty boring stuff. Duty details, requisitions, supply shipments. That kind of stuff.”

  “Most? Does that imply there’s something else?”

  “Yes, sir. There were several other sheets that were…interesting, although I don’t know what to make of them.”

  “What were they?”

  “Well, see, that’s the problem; I don’t know exactly what they are, and the condition of the files didn’t help. They were burned in a few places, charred in a few more, and had several holes in them as well.”

  “So stop telling us what they aren’t and tell us what they are.”

  “Well, sir, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looks like some sort of money laundering scheme.”

  “What?”

  “See? That was what I thought as well. Aliens doing money laundering…what? But that’s what it appears to be.” She held up a piece of paper. “This letter is the deployment order for the leader of the Besquith forces. It instructs him to bring his troops here and includes a detailed battle plan for defeating the Asbaran Solutions force. After the battle, the Besquith leader was supposed to meet up with somebody named Tranayl to get paid.”

  “I don’t see how that’s money laundering.”

  “Apparently, there was a second contract, beyond the one that brought us here. The Besquith were going to be paid 40 million credits for their participation.”

  “What? That’s a lot more than we’re getting paid.”

  “Correct. They were to take the extra money after the end of this mission and recruit additional troops that were to be used for ‘future operations.’”

  “That sounds ominous. Does it say what those operations were or when they are supposed to occur?”

  “No, sir. If that was included in the file, it’s been lost or destroyed.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nigel turned to Mason. “I think it’s time to go see our employer and get paid for our efforts.”

  “And maybe find out who this ‘Tranayl’ person is?” Mason asked.

  “You can count on it.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Caroon Outpost, Planet Moorhouse

  “This place is almost as big a shithole as the base is,” Mason noted. Nigel and seven of the troopers had driven the three miles to the mining outpost in an armored personnel carrier one of the platoon had found in the motor pool, and then had dismounted to walk into town. Mason had said the alien Caroons were somewhat skittish around military hardware, and the CASPers would intimidate them enough; an APC rolling through the town would make them head for their holes, never to be seen again. The “town” looked like a frontier town from the American Wild West; buildings lined the street for about three blocks, with no other signs of habitation in the area. The town appeared in poor shape; the buildings looked ready to fall over in the first breeze.

  The road into town, such as it was, only extended into the wilderness about 200 feet from the first bui
lding before petering out. Beyond the town on the far side, the land disappeared into a giant strip mine. At over six miles across and three miles deep, the mine dwarfed the largest mine on Earth, the Bingham Canyon Mine, and was the reason for the town’s existence.

  As the group approached the settlement, Nigel could see some of the aliens hurrying between buildings. Generally mammalian in appearance with long noses and droopy ears, the Caroons looked like oversized anteaters. The aliens had long sharp claws and were adapted for life underground; they had a reputation for being excellent diggers and miners.

  “The base got hit with a major assault that destroyed most of it,” Corporal Davis said, looking at the ramshackle buildings. “The outpost didn’t, and it looks worse off than the base.”

  “It smells pretty bad, too,” Nigel said. As the only soldier not wearing a CASPer, he was exposed to the brunt of the aliens’ unique scent; he decided it was somewhere between vulture vomit and a trash dump at noon on the hottest day of the year.

  Without any vehicular traffic to avoid, the humans walked down the middle of the street. Led by Nigel and Mason, the force spread out from one side of the street to the other. Nigel carried a laser rifle, his eyes constantly in motion; the CASPers were fully armed, and their operators swept the town with their sensors, looking for trouble.

  None of the Caroons bothered them as they walked into town; most of them ran shrieking in terror, and those that stayed tended to give the combat suits a wide berth, scampering into buildings as the humans approached.

  The march through town was uneventful, and the group was soon in front of the last building before the mine. Labeled Peskall’s Pretties, it was the local office of the company that had hired Asbaran Solutions to protect the mine. The building was enormous, extending another two blocks beyond the town, with a processing facility behind it. Large pieces of earth-moving equipment rumbled back and forth from the pit to the processing plant.