Cornerstone, page 14
Still, he wasn’t about to fall into despair – Gabriel had been neck deep in the shit before and he’d always managed to haul himself out, even if he’d had to swallow a few mouthfuls on the way. The most important lesson he’d learned from his close scrapes in the past was that he should never give up – not until death finally got the better of him, and he hoped the grim reaper knew how to dodge gauss bullets.
Up ahead, Corporal Ziegler led the squad from one corridor to the next, while Gabriel kept one eye on the base map to ensure his officer didn’t get them lost.
About two hundred metres from the entrance, Ziegler drew to a halt, and Gabriel took the opportunity to push his way to the front.
“Why have you stopped, Corporal?”
Ziegler was ten paces along a corridor leading north. This corridor was long and flanked on both sides by doors, a few of which were closed, though most were open. The soldier was leaning cautiously into the first open doorway. The sound of the Ex’Kaminar was louder here – much louder.
“This passage runs just inside the eastern wall of this structure, sir,” said Ziegler. “These doorways lead into offices and all the outside windows are blown.” He banged his palm against the access panel. “And the doors aren’t working.”
Gabriel looked east into the room – which was a ruined office just like all the others – and saw the problem at once. The Sagh’eld had easy ground-level access to the building through the shattered windows. They’d soon discover these access points. Perhaps they already had, and they were lying in ambush somewhere nearby.
Cursing angrily, he listened for anything out of place. Of course, he heard nothing over the Ex’Kaminar’s propulsion.
“We’re not turning back, so we’ll have to do this quickly,” he said.
The squad knew how to operate under pressure and without the requirement for micromanagement. Gabriel indicated he was going first, and that he wanted Private Chan to come with him. When Chan had nodded his understanding, Gabriel darted across the first doorway. He glanced through the aperture as he went and caught a glimpse of a gravity-engined truck on the street outside, its roof crushed by a fallen alloy beam.
Advancing quickly and soundlessly, with Chan on the other side of the corridor, Gabriel stopped just before the doorway to the next office facing the eastern wall, while Chan halted by the doorway opposite. Gabriel met Chan’s eyes. The soldier smiled and patted the barrel of his RAHD.
“Now,” mouthed Gabriel.
As one, the two of them took the quickest of glances into the rooms before withdrawing their heads.
“Clear,” whispered Chan.
“Clear,” Gabriel agreed.
Repeating the manoeuvre, the two soldiers approached the next two doorways, checked for Sagh’eld and then continued. At the third doorway, Gabriel turned to ensure the rest of the squad were moving up with them. The soldiers were all on full alert, their guns raised, some pointed north and some pointed back south.
Gabriel and Chan continued their advance. Although they operated quickly, Gabriel felt the passing time weighing down upon him. The Sagh’eld were holding all the aces, and they wouldn’t be tiptoeing through the building. When the aliens arrived, it would be in great numbers.
“We have to get this done,” said Gabriel quietly, mentally counting the doorways in his head. Eight more remained, and then they’d reach the closed door at the corridor’s end. What they’d find on the other side, was anyone’s guess.
Chan nodded once, and Gabriel strode on. Eight doors became six and then four. As he approached the third-from-last door, Gabriel was almost caught off guard when the end door to the passage slid open without warning. He couldn’t see if it was a room or a corridor beyond, since numerous Sagh’eld soldiers were blocking his view.
The enemy were alert, but Gabriel reacted fastest. He held in the trigger on his gauss rifle. At such close range, he hardly needed to aim, and the slugs punched into the lead enemy soldier. A split second later, Chan fired his RAHD. The gun discharged with a thump and the torso of the same Sagh’eld soldier was torn into ribbons and its blood exploded in an obscuring spray.
“Sir!” came the voice of Private Damico from back down the corridor. “Get clear!”
The death of the lead alien had fouled the response of those behind it, buying Gabriel enough time to hurl himself into the office to his right. He landed heavily but rolled quickly to a position from where he could scan the room. Other than the usual cindered remains, it was empty.
Twisting around and springing to his feet, he became aware of the beating drone of Damico’s Kahn-3 repeater, and he sensed the motion of the bullets as they flashed past the open doorway.
In the room opposite, Chan was also on his feet, and he offered a thumbs-up to show he wasn’t injured. Suddenly, the soldier’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened as he prepared to shout a warning. He swung the barrel of his RAHD towards Gabriel.
Acting on instinct, Gabriel dropped low and sprang away from the doorway, turning as he did so. He heard the discharge of Chan’s RAHD and was just in time to see the head of a Sagh’eld soldier outside the office window burst in a shower of blood, bones and shattered combat helmet. A second enemy soldier ducked out of sight.
In the corridor outside, Corporal Zeigler yelled that the way was clear. Gabriel regained his feet and walked backwards towards the door. He’d seen one Sagh’eld trooper outside and he was sure it would soon be joined by others. On the plus side, the alien soldier hadn’t thrown a grenade into this room, which made Gabriel hopeful the enemy were being especially careful to avoid damaging the Galos.
The head of a Sagh’eld – the same one as before, or a new arrival, Gabriel didn’t know – appeared over the melted windowsill, and the alien was holding its gauss rifle high in a sideways grip. It fired a handful of bullets, but it was wary about being killed, so didn’t take the time to aim. Gabriel fired back, but the alien dropped out of sight too quickly for him to land a shot.
“Now, sir, move!” said Ziegler.
Gabriel didn’t hesitate and he backed straight out of the room into the corridor. Most of the squad – including Davison and Teague with the Galos - had already moved past into the next corridor, while Ziegler was in cover behind the doorframe, with his gauss rifle aimed towards the street outside.
“Have this,” Ziegler snarled, firing a rapid three shots from his rifle, only a moment after Gabriel had escaped the room.
Pausing for only a second to see if the squad members behind him needed any assistance, Gabriel set off after the others. Damico now had his Kahn-3 aimed south and he hauled the weapon off the floor before haring it north. Ziegler fired another couple of shots into the office and then joined the sprint.
“Crap, we really stirred them up,” said the soldier.
Gabriel didn’t answer and concentrated on stepping over the chewed-up pieces of Sagh’eld on the floor. Damico’s Kahn-3 had really done a number on them and the floor was slick with the blood of at least eight enemy soldiers.
Deep inside, he knew the noose was tightening, and his hopes of making it to the New Beginning were fading fast.
EIGHTEEN
The other soldiers also knew the game was just about up, and Gabriel sensed them faltering. He guessed they’d be asking themselves if he had a change of plan in mind – or anything that would drag them from the brink of a seemingly inevitable defeat.
However, Gabriel wasn’t nearly ready to give up. The Sagh’eld were closing in, but this was a large building and the aliens could only guess which exit he and his squad were planning to take. “Keep moving!” he shouted. “Stick to the route!”
“Yes, sir,” he heard Hennessey shout from up front.
The corridor continued north and the squad hurried along it. Despite the hazards of travelling with such haste, on this occasion the greater danger lay with the measured approach.
“We should be at the exit soon,” said Gabriel. According to the base map, that exit was on the far side of a large room labelled Main Reception. If the reception was glass fronted, he and his squad would be badly exposed, but he’d already dismissed the other exits as requiring too great a diversion.
Up ahead, Corporal Hennessey brought the squad to a halt, and Gabriel moved up to join her.
“I thought it best if we slow down as we approach the reception area, Sergeant,” she said. “It’s only thirty metres away.”
Gabriel nodded. The passage here was wide enough for four to walk abreast and it ended at double doors. Both doors had buckled inwards, as if they’d been struck by an explosive force, and, when he narrowed his eyes, Gabriel saw a gap where they joined.
“I’m going to take a look,” he said. “Be ready for anything.”
Advancing to the doors, Gabriel noticed there was power going to the access panel. Whether the doors themselves would open, he didn’t know and he wasn’t planning to try until he’d had a look through the gap.
Leaning forward, Gabriel brought his eyes level with the opening. His HUD sensor informed him that a faint breeze was coming through, and he could smell the char.
The viewing angle into the reception was tight and it took him a few moments to make sense of it. Gabriel stepped back.
“The reception is full of crap,” he said. “It looks as if the street outside has been hit by multiple explosives and whatever was on the road has been thrown into the reception. There’s plenty of cover, but it also means I can’t see the enemy.” Turning to face the squad, Gabriel smiled thinly. “I think we’re about to run into some trouble.”
“Then let’s get out there and face it,” said Chan. “Before those assholes turn up at our backs.”
Gabriel swung back towards the doors and stepped up to the access panel. “Open, damnit,” he muttered.
He touched the panel and heard the whine of motors. Each of the two doors lurched halfway into their wall recesses and then came to a stop. Immediately, the sound of the Ex’Kaminar’s engines increased significantly in volume.
One look through the opening was enough for Gabriel to absorb the details. The reception was a large space – which he already knew – and the doors opened directly behind what had once been a row of metal desks. The desks had first been burned by incendiaries and then crushed by the debris which had been hurled through the long glass frontage.
Directly in front of Gabriel were the crumpled remains of a seven-metre gravity transporter truck, with its undersides facing him, and beyond that, he could see rubble, broken alloy beams and two gravity cars. The truck blocked some of his view, but he was sure more of the same lay on the parts of the floor which were currently out of his sight.
Looking beyond the debris, Gabriel could also see onto the street, again with a partial view. To his surprise, there was no sign of movement.
“I’m moving up,” said Gabriel, making a dash for the gravity truck.
Despite its ruined state, the vehicle offered good cover and he advanced north along its undersides. At the farthest edge of the truck, Gabriel looked once more into the room. It was possible the Sagh’eld had established themselves behind some of the wreckage and were lying in wait, so he stared intently for signs of anything which might give them away.
Corporal Ziegler and Private Galvan joined Gabriel at the truck. Ziegler raised a questioning eyebrow.
Gabriel shrugged. “I’m going out there,” he said.
Without another word, he broke from cover and dashed the short distance to the remains of a gravity car. Dropping immediately out of sight, Gabriel waited to see if his appearance had stirred a hornet’s nest. Looking back at the truck, he saw Ziegler leaning out, making a hand signal to indicate he’d seen no movement.
The reassurance was less than total, since Ziegler’s view of the room was limited by the truck he’d taken cover behind. Even so, Gabriel knew he had to keep things moving, and he rose cautiously from his crouch, until he could see over the top of the gravity car. From here, he had a good vantage across the reception area. Multiple exits led away, and some of the doors were open. These, as well as the street itself, represented possible attack vectors for the enemy.
Reminded how tenuous his position was, Gabriel exited cover and sprinted directly for the metre-high alloy wall which separated the reception area from the street outside. The melted floor tiles were littered with dust, grit, and uneven pieces of window polymer, which conspired to make the approach a slippery one. Gabriel’s feet skidded twice, but he didn’t fall.
Stooping low next to the wall, a few metres from the exit with its missing doors, Gabriel listened for clues that the enemy had detected his presence. Once again, he could hear nothing over the battleship’s engines.
The rest of the squad could handle themselves in situations like this and they were already filtering eastwards across the room towards the outer wall. Gabriel let them get on with it, and he lifted himself up just enough that he could see the street.
Outside was more debris and more rubble, though much of it seemed to have been hurled into the adjacent buildings. The road itself had been struck numerous times by Sagh’eld missiles, and Gabriel saw two thirty-metre craters along with others which were smaller. Meanwhile, the Ex’Kaminar was over the base, just like it had been ever since the beginning of this shitstorm.
Directing his gaze farther north, Gabriel spotted what he believed to be the entrance to the next building on the route to the New Beginning. At only fifty metres away, it seemed almost close enough to touch.
Gabriel didn’t dare hope that the scales might be tipping in his favour, and he waved the soldiers towards the reception’s outer wall in preparation for a sprint to the next waypoint on the journey, while indicating that Davison and Teague should hang back with the Galos unit. The deciding moment might well be approaching, Gabriel knew. If he and his squad could make it safely into the next building, they’d soon be able to head underground. Then, they’d be in a far better position than now.
Inching further along the wall, so that everyone was able to hear him, Gabriel quickly spelled out his plan, such as it was.
“We’re heading straight for the next entrance. If we see any Sagh’eld, we’ll take cover and deal with them. Otherwise, we’re going to do this as quickly as possible.”
Making his way past the crouching Private Damico, with his feet crunching on the gritty floor, Gabriel stopped at the entrance. A straight-line run to the target building wasn’t possible because of the wreckage outside, so he’d have to skirt around the nearest crater and divert past an overturned gravity truck.
“Let’s go,” said Gabriel.
Dashing from cover, he made it to the edge of the thirty-metre crater. Glancing inside, he saw that the sloping inner walls were rough, and they curved down to a depth of eight or nine metres.
Accelerating around the crater’s rim, Gabriel set his sights on the gravity car. Escape was seemingly within his grasp, and it gave him additional strength.
Just when he was beginning to think he and his squad had outmanoeuvred the Sagh’eld, Gabriel was brought crashing down. Sound and movement from overhead made him to look up, just in time to see three shuttles emerge at high velocity from over the tops of the structures further north.
“Sergeant there’re three more to the south!” said Corporal Hennessey.
“Rocket out!” yelled Private Castle.
The missile from his shoulder launcher whooshed above Gabriel’s head and struck one of the shuttles to the north, ripping it apart with ease. Meanwhile, the other two transports came to a halt and dropped vertically out of sight about a hundred metres north. In moments, Sagh’eld troops would be spilling from their passenger bays.
“The shuttles to the south are landing, Sergeant,” said Private Teague.
Inwardly, Gabriel cursed and then cursed again. The Sagh’eld had successfully predicted his intended exit point from the previous building, and they’d laid a trap. Soon, this area would be overrun with enemy troops, and, even though the Sagh’eld would likely take plenty of casualties, they had the numbers to kill every member of Gabriel’s squad, while at the same time taking care not to damage the Galos module.
Refusing to slow, he sprinted on, in case the enemy had mistimed their assault. Having completed his half circuit of the missile crater, Gabriel reached the gravity truck. Checking behind, he saw that the rest of his squad were close behind, including Davison, Teague and the Galos device.
“Enemy soldiers south,” said Corporal Hennessey. Her shots were joined by those from other members of the squad.
Holding his own rifle tight into his shoulder, Gabriel leaned out from the edge of the gravity truck. This gave him a good view north up the street, and he could see the top sections of both shuttles, along with the blazing wreckage of the third.
A squad of Sagh’eld soldiers were crouched behind a slab of concrete about fifteen metres away and they spotted Gabriel at the same time as he saw them. Luckily for Gabriel he was an old hand at this game. A single shot tore through the skull of one enemy soldier, while the Sagh’eld’s return fire clanked off the metal shell of the truck as Gabriel vanished back into cover.
“I take it we’re screwed, Sergeant?” asked Private Galvan from the adjacent position behind the truck.
“Pretty much,” Gabriel confirmed.
He looked around the edge of the gravity truck again, and saw the movement of other Sagh’eld squads. These alien soldiers must have been here before the shuttles arrived, and they were plentiful enough to slow or kill Gabriel’s squad before they escaped into the target building.
While his mind desperately hunted for a way out, he took aim at a Sagh’eld soldier as it leaned out from behind another truck to the south. Gabriel fired a single shot, but the alien ducked back out of sight, leaving him unsure if he’d scored a hit or not.
“Into the crater!” ordered Gabriel, loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the battleship’s propulsion. “Suppressive fire!”
The squad members dashed for the crater, stopping briefly every few paces to fire their weapons towards the places where the Sagh’eld had taken cover, while Hennessey and Teague hurled grenades towards the enemy positions. Private Castle’s shoulder launcher had recharged and he fired a rocket south.
