THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION, page 9
“HQ to Lewis.”
“Lewis - go.”
“Yes, we have three suits available.”
“Good. I need them as soon as you can get them to me.”
“I’ll have them loaded on a robo-mule and off to your ‘twenty’ within the hour. It shouldn’t take more than two hours to get to you.”
“I’ll have my Sergeant waiting for them - out.” He switched frequencies back. “We have three suits on their way, Cap.”
“Good. I’m putting you in charge of the operation Teddy.”
“Thanks, Sir. We’ll take care of it.”
“Tell me what you need, and when you need it.”
“Will do, Cap. I’ll send you my battle plan the moment I have it worked out with Ben-Sharon.”
“Good man there. Listen to what he has to say.”
“Will do, Sir.”
* * * * * *
Ben-Sharon found a depression in the sheer rock face and stopped to take a breather. The gecko suit he and the other two wore, were so ‘sticky’ it was possible for him to free his hands and take a drink by just pushing his body against the rock face.
“How you doing Ben?” Lewis whispered in his ear.
“Good, sir. We’re about half way up.”
“Ten-four.”
“Anything on that orbiting ship, Lt?”
“The word from ‘brass hat’ is that it’s just a troop ship. The Thrakee Battle Group is off playing tag with the Imperials and won’t be back for a while.”
“Good to hear.”
“That ship isn’t equipped to drop KEW’s on us if that’s what you’re worrying about.”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Everything is ready once you get to the top and give the all clear.”
“Hauling those max-pack batteries up this cliff is what’s worrying me.”
“I know, but we’ll need the tri-barrel if this turns into a fur ball.”
“Let’s hope the gods of war are on our side this time and it won’t come to that.”
“The Lord be praised and pass the ammo.” Lewis laughed.
Even with the limpet like capacity of the gecko suits, it was still a hard climb up the face of the cliff. Even now his muscles ached from the strain of pulling himself up. Thankfully there were still six hours of darkness remaining, but he knew the rest of the climb would be slower due to exhaustion. Taking a deep breath he started up again, inch by inch. Reach, slap with his hands to stick to the rock face, pull and push with his hands, knees or toes and another foot went by, and then repeat until his whole body ached and screamed for relief. But he couldn’t stop, even knowing the truth of all this, it didn’t matter. Someday soon he might have to do this for real; even so, the fear of falling was still strong, even knowing he couldn’t die. One part of his brain knew this, but the other part refused to accept it. You fall you die. It was as simple as that. Just then something caught the corner of his eye.
“That you Menendez?”
“Right on, Sarge. You old guys just can’t cut the mustard anymore.” Even with the gecko suit in full invisibility mode, if you caught it just right you knew something was there.
“You cheeky twat!” He growled. “It’s only because you are half my weight and twenty years younger…” He spluttered, thinking of the embarrassment of having a girl beat him to the top.
“Yeah, yeah. Heard that all before, Sergeant old fart!”
“Jezzzus… I’m of half a mind to come over there and show you just how old I am.”
“Ohhh kinky. Doing it on a rock face. That’s a new one.”
“What! I didn’t mean it that way, you little brat.”
“Any time, any place… well, except here of course.” She giggled.
Ben-Sharon doubled his effort, but she still stayed ahead of him. He’d seen Judy Menendez giving him the eye more than once and smiled to himself. Nothing he could do about it now, seeing as she was in his chain of command, but after training... That took his mind off the fatigue and he was able to stay with her for the rest of the climb. At last they reached the edge of the cliff and waited until Corporal Jackson caught up.
Oh fuck! He muttered over the TAC frequency. “Thought I was going to fall off a couple of times back there.”
“Well, you’re here now, so let’s get on with it. We haven’t got all night.” Well, they did, but neither of them pointed that out to him.
Chinning himself up, Ben-Sharon looked over the top, and as expected the mound of broken slabs of rock were right in front of them. On top was a nasty looking heavy weapons unit that covered the whole plateau. Even if his troops could get to the top past the others covering the flank of the scarp, this one up here could mow them down in a heartbeat.
“Okay, as planned. You two stay here and set up the climbing unit while I go up there and take care of the nasties.”
“Better you than me, Sarge.”
“Be careful, Ben… Sarge.” Menendez whispered.
“I will.”
Slithering over the lip, he wormed his way up into the rock pile, freeing his bolt gun as he did. He’d chosen the multi shot bolt gun as it was silent and could kill a Thrakee before they knew what hit them. No way was he going to get into a knife fight with one of them, let alone two of them, which was normal for a heavy weapons unit. As he moved forward, he got a tingling sensation on his exposed hands as he neared the defense shield. This close to the ground it wasn’t hard to push through it, due to the energy bleeding into the ground.
“Start the dance.” He whispered into his comm unit.
As if in cue, he heard the MRL’s start to fire in the distance and saw the incoming tracks of the rockets as they arched up and over before slamming into the shield. Almost immediately the Thrakee opened up with their counter battery and anti-missile systems. Those took down half of the incoming ordnance and the return fire wouldn’t hit anything, as the launchers had already moved to a new location. The second MRL’s launched their payloads and soon after that, the third group. Ben-Sharon put it out of his mind and concentrated on slithering around the rocks to get into position for the kill. Lifting his head, he found one Thrakee trooper fiddling with his weapon, while the other sat back in his thermal blanket and watched the fireworks overhead. He must be chuckling to himself thinking how stupid the humans were, wasting ammo against the shield. As an old hand, he didn’t get very excited by this, unlike some of his fellow troopers down on the plateau. Clinging to the rock face Ben-Sharon shot the one leaning back against the rock in the head, just as one of the MRL rockets exploded. The second one didn’t even know his squad mate was dead, or really feel the shaft from the bolt gun as it entered the side of his head.
“High point secure. Send the rest of the men up.”
“Ten-four.”
Ben-Sharon switched the Thrakee tri-barrel off and dismounted it, as with the bio-lock on the weapon they couldn’t use it, mores the pity. Even as experienced as he was, it was still a nail biting wait for the rest of his team to arrive.
“Coming in.” Menendez whispered in his ear.
“Come on in. The coast is clear.”
“Nice fireworks display the Lt is putting on for us, Sarge.”
“Yeah. Let’s hope it keeps the lizard’s attention elsewhere.” Menendez came around the rock face followed by the rest of the team, and she took a knee beside him.
“Okay. You all know what to do. MPAT’s in position. Your primary target is the shield generator. After that, the heavy weapons units on the edge of the scarp.”
“Hurrah!”
“Get your fly-eyes out as quickly as possible and find the weak spot at the rear of the emplacements. I doubt you’ll have more than one, maybe two shots before all hell comes down on our head, so look sharp.” Ben-Sharon growled.
“Come on Sarge. This isn’t our first rodeo.”
“I heard that before Hendrickson, and if I remember, you missed that fucking great big tank on your last outing.”
“Give me a break! Shit. How was I to know it was a holo!” All that got back was a bunch of raspberries from the rest of the team.
“Put a sock in it and get to work.” Even so, he couldn’t hide the laughter in his voice. This bunch of wanabe Terran Marines was turning out all right. He was proud of them. Between Menendez and him they got the tri-barrel set up and keyed in to its field of fire, and just as they finished, the MPAT teams checked in.
“How you doing back there Jackson?”
“I have all the drop lines secured and ready, Sarge.”
“Good. All teams. On my mark.” He waited for the ‘click’ returns before keying his comm unit.
“Sharon to Lt.”
“Lt actual - go.”
“All ready here.”
“Good, go for it.”
“Mark!” He barked as he switched back. The moment he did, the super velocity MPAT rockets flashed across the top of the plateau and blew the shield generator to hell and gone. The moment the shield dropped, the incoming rounds started impacting the ground, sending the Thrakee into a panic.
“So much for being prepared for the worst, assholes.” Menendez muttered, seeing Thrakee bodies being blown apart and blasted into the air.
“Shit! Get your heads down. INCOMING!” Ben-Sharon yelled. The Thrakee were quicker off the mark than he’d expected. That was going to make taking out the heavy weapons emplacements a lot harder. Even as he yelled, six MPAT rockets shot across the plateau and blew five of the units to scrap.
“Shit! Hendrickson, you shithead!”
“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.”
“Shut the fuck up and keep firing.”
“Oh fuck! Here they come.” Menendez shouted. Sharon took a look over the top of the rock he was sheltering behind and saw what she meant. It looked as if someone had kicked over an anthill, five hundred or so Thrakee were charging towards them, shooting as they came, and sending blooper grenade rounds ahead of them. The ground in front exploded into flying shrapnel and rock shards.
“Oh fuck!” Menendez muttered as she fell.
“Damn it girl. You hit?”
“Shit yes… shoulder.”
“All weapons units disabled, Sarge.”
“Good, put down some covering fire and get the hell out of here.”
“What… what about you?”
“I gave you an order trooper! Get the fuck out of here NOW!”
“You need to get out of here as well, Ben.”
“How many times do I have to tell you people that my name isn’t Ben… Oh what the fuck. Ben will do.” He muttered, trying to hold her shoulder together. She wasn’t just hit, the rock shard had practically ripped her arm off at the shoulder, and she was quickly bleeding out. Even the ‘quick heal’ wasn’t slowing the blood enough. Behind them, the tri-barrel started up on auto, sweeping back and forth. It wouldn’t stop them for long, nor was it supposed to. Just long enough for the strike team to get out and down the waiting ropes.
“You need to go, Ben. I’ll hold them off for a while when they come over the top.”
“We’ll hold them off together girl.”
“Damn! Just wish I could have got you into bed at least once.” She gasped as the pain hit again.
“You will girl, once this is all over.”
“In your dreams maybe.” She gave him a weak smile, knowing she was dying from blood loss. He kissed her then, and for a moment, her lips locked hungrily with his.
“Don’t you worry, girl. I’ll see you again soon. You rest.”
Just then a grenade exploded in front of the tri-barrel, knocking it out of alignment. That gave the Thrakee the opening they needed and they stormed over the top. They both managed to get off a few shots before the storm of blaster bolts tore them apart.
“Fuck that hurts.” Was the last thing Isaac Ben-Sharon thought as he plunged into darkness.
Once the shield and the heavy weapons emplacements were taken out, the only thing the Thrakee could do was charge down the slope and engage the Terran Marines. Once they’d been pulled out of position, the Marines met them head on, and the battle dissolved into a hand-to-hand melee. The few shuttlecraft that managed to lift off were quickly blown out of the sky, and within an hour, the last battle was over. At that point, General Marks and Richard Penn flew in and surveyed the battle scene, smiling slightly. Knowing Michael, he was betting the Thrakee here put up a lot tougher fight than the real ones would, or at least he hoped so. If that was the case, he knew which way the battle would go. Sadly, when that happened, anyone that died then would really be dead.
“Well, there’s the army you asked for, Richard.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting the simulation to be as real as this.”
“They had to be battle ready, Richard.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?”
“I have the feeling we shouldn’t tell them it wasn’t for real.” Clayborn Marks looked at him a moment and nodded.
“A few already know.” He mused. “So the word will finally get out.”
“True, but most won’t believe it.”
“You don’t want to take away their feeling of price, I take it.” Richard nodded.
“Nothing to gain from that, and it might have the opposite effect.”
“Okay, I’ll go along with that. So, we hand out promotions and medals as if it were the real thing, right?”
“Right.”
* * * * * *
Judy Menendez woke up and rolled over, feeling warm and cozy as she pulled the covers up over her shoulder. The moment she did, she suddenly sat up, touching her shoulder remembering her she’d been wounded. Pulling back the lace nightgown, she looked at her shoulder, expecting to see bandages, or at least a scar, but the skin was smooth and free of blemishes as it had been before.
“What the hell?” She looked around the room in wonder. She should be in hospital, or in the barracks at least, not this comfortable looking bedroom with lace curtains and flowered bedspread. Just then, the door opened and in walked Sargeant Ben-Sharon and General Marks.
“As you were.” Sharon barked as she started to get out of bed and stand to attention.
“Good to see you awake and well, Menendez.”
“Um… me too… I guess.” She looked at their smiling faces a moment. “What happened?”
“Nothing much. We won the battle and the war is over. For now at least.”
“But... but… that’s not what I meant… sir.”
“I know it isn’t, but I’ll let Lieutenant Ben-Sharon explain that to you, Sergeant.”
“Sergeant… But I’m a Corporal…”
“I know. I just dropped by to congratulate you and hand you your stripes and the commendation.”
“Commendation?”
“Yes, you deserve it, but I’ll let Isaac explain it all to you. Congratulations, Sergeant.”
“Um… thank you, sir.” Clayborn Marks saluted the young woman in the bed and left all the explaining to Ben-Sharon.
“Ben… Isaac! What the hell is going on?” Taking his beret off, he sat down on the side of the bed.
“Did you mean it?” He asked, giving him a dark look.
“Mean what?”
“That kiss you gave me up on the plateau.” Judy blushed and pulled the bed covers up. “Was if for real?”
“I hope so, girl. Otherwise you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Wait… trouble? What the hell is going on? I… we should be dead!”
“Well, we are sort of, but first I have to tell you a story, and get you to promise not to tell anyone.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“A story?” He nodded. Slowly, and as carefully as he could, he told her what the war with the Thrakee was all about. As expected, she got mad, glaring at him with her dark eyes.
“So it was all for nothing!” She yelled, jumping out of bed. “Of all the sneaky, underhanded, low life, deceitful pricks in the world, I had to go and fall in love with the lowest, bottom feeding, scum sucking…” Forgetting the lace nightgown didn’t hide much of her naked body underneath.
“Did you just say fall in love, Judy?” Ben-Sharon asked in a soft voice, looking a little bemused.
“…prick… what? No… I didn’t say that… did I?” Sharon nodded, seeing her nibble her lower lip, frowning and blinking her eyes. “Oh shit!”
“So, you love me, right?”
“What… no… I take it back. Love you! I should kick the living crap out of…" She stuttered to a halt as Ben-Sharon came and stood very close to her. “Oh shit.” She muttered.
“Too late to take it back Judy, because I love you too.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
Chapter Seven
Telluria Prime
Sitting back in his comfortable chair behind his desk Director Markoff had similar thoughts as the Professor as he contemplated the wall screen and its view of Earth from space. His latest check of incoming starships, both naval and civilian told the same story. Penn’s virus program was still running, and he was still no closer to rediscovering the location of that accursed planet. After his meeting with Professor Veolan he’d had a research team go through the imperial archives, especially the older documents that still hadn’t been transcribed to an electronic medium and they did so immediately. What he’d found once he’d sorted all the data into its proper order disturbed him even more. The Professor had been wrong in one respect, the documents turned out to be a transcription of earlier records from another species entirely, one who was no longer a threat to anyone. They too had discovered Earth some 100,000 years ago but had seen it more as a potential of supplying troops for their never-ending wars with surrounding Empires. They’d taken the indigenous humanoid race and had genetically re-engineered them into soldiers; they had then let the humans breed until there were sufficient numbers to harvest and train into front line troops. All went well for some time until two events occurred at the same moment. First, the Ormlec were annihilated when the humans turned on their masters, and second, a catastrophic eruption of a volcano on Earth wiped out 90% of the human race after they’d all returned to their home planet. Subsequent research by several cultures suggests that fewer than 20,000 humans remained alive after the eruption and its aftereffects, and assumed incorrectly that they were no longer a threat. Fools that they were, they’d never considered the genetically engineered humans will to survive, or their tenacious nature. The historical data had also answered the question of the human instinctive primeval hatred of reptiles, as that’s what the Ormlec were, being the prehistoric ancestors of the Thrakee. It also clarified the charming fairy tale story of their ‘garden of Eden’ and the story about the reptile, or snake causing their expulsion. It made sense that the altered humans could never go back to being children of the forest as they’d once been. That idyllic life had been forever stripped from their genes, and it condemned them to perpetual cycles of war. Just the thought of them getting off planet in their own ships with weapons to equal the Empire sent a small shiver running down his back. Now, it became even more imperative he find that accursed planet and finish them off once and for all, before his nightmare came true. Even with all those dark thoughts, an idea struck him, one that hadn’t occurred to him before, and on impulse, which in itself was unusual for him, he mentally searched for Bema Greta’s comm number and made the connection.
“Lewis - go.”
“Yes, we have three suits available.”
“Good. I need them as soon as you can get them to me.”
“I’ll have them loaded on a robo-mule and off to your ‘twenty’ within the hour. It shouldn’t take more than two hours to get to you.”
“I’ll have my Sergeant waiting for them - out.” He switched frequencies back. “We have three suits on their way, Cap.”
“Good. I’m putting you in charge of the operation Teddy.”
“Thanks, Sir. We’ll take care of it.”
“Tell me what you need, and when you need it.”
“Will do, Cap. I’ll send you my battle plan the moment I have it worked out with Ben-Sharon.”
“Good man there. Listen to what he has to say.”
“Will do, Sir.”
* * * * * *
Ben-Sharon found a depression in the sheer rock face and stopped to take a breather. The gecko suit he and the other two wore, were so ‘sticky’ it was possible for him to free his hands and take a drink by just pushing his body against the rock face.
“How you doing Ben?” Lewis whispered in his ear.
“Good, sir. We’re about half way up.”
“Ten-four.”
“Anything on that orbiting ship, Lt?”
“The word from ‘brass hat’ is that it’s just a troop ship. The Thrakee Battle Group is off playing tag with the Imperials and won’t be back for a while.”
“Good to hear.”
“That ship isn’t equipped to drop KEW’s on us if that’s what you’re worrying about.”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Everything is ready once you get to the top and give the all clear.”
“Hauling those max-pack batteries up this cliff is what’s worrying me.”
“I know, but we’ll need the tri-barrel if this turns into a fur ball.”
“Let’s hope the gods of war are on our side this time and it won’t come to that.”
“The Lord be praised and pass the ammo.” Lewis laughed.
Even with the limpet like capacity of the gecko suits, it was still a hard climb up the face of the cliff. Even now his muscles ached from the strain of pulling himself up. Thankfully there were still six hours of darkness remaining, but he knew the rest of the climb would be slower due to exhaustion. Taking a deep breath he started up again, inch by inch. Reach, slap with his hands to stick to the rock face, pull and push with his hands, knees or toes and another foot went by, and then repeat until his whole body ached and screamed for relief. But he couldn’t stop, even knowing the truth of all this, it didn’t matter. Someday soon he might have to do this for real; even so, the fear of falling was still strong, even knowing he couldn’t die. One part of his brain knew this, but the other part refused to accept it. You fall you die. It was as simple as that. Just then something caught the corner of his eye.
“That you Menendez?”
“Right on, Sarge. You old guys just can’t cut the mustard anymore.” Even with the gecko suit in full invisibility mode, if you caught it just right you knew something was there.
“You cheeky twat!” He growled. “It’s only because you are half my weight and twenty years younger…” He spluttered, thinking of the embarrassment of having a girl beat him to the top.
“Yeah, yeah. Heard that all before, Sergeant old fart!”
“Jezzzus… I’m of half a mind to come over there and show you just how old I am.”
“Ohhh kinky. Doing it on a rock face. That’s a new one.”
“What! I didn’t mean it that way, you little brat.”
“Any time, any place… well, except here of course.” She giggled.
Ben-Sharon doubled his effort, but she still stayed ahead of him. He’d seen Judy Menendez giving him the eye more than once and smiled to himself. Nothing he could do about it now, seeing as she was in his chain of command, but after training... That took his mind off the fatigue and he was able to stay with her for the rest of the climb. At last they reached the edge of the cliff and waited until Corporal Jackson caught up.
Oh fuck! He muttered over the TAC frequency. “Thought I was going to fall off a couple of times back there.”
“Well, you’re here now, so let’s get on with it. We haven’t got all night.” Well, they did, but neither of them pointed that out to him.
Chinning himself up, Ben-Sharon looked over the top, and as expected the mound of broken slabs of rock were right in front of them. On top was a nasty looking heavy weapons unit that covered the whole plateau. Even if his troops could get to the top past the others covering the flank of the scarp, this one up here could mow them down in a heartbeat.
“Okay, as planned. You two stay here and set up the climbing unit while I go up there and take care of the nasties.”
“Better you than me, Sarge.”
“Be careful, Ben… Sarge.” Menendez whispered.
“I will.”
Slithering over the lip, he wormed his way up into the rock pile, freeing his bolt gun as he did. He’d chosen the multi shot bolt gun as it was silent and could kill a Thrakee before they knew what hit them. No way was he going to get into a knife fight with one of them, let alone two of them, which was normal for a heavy weapons unit. As he moved forward, he got a tingling sensation on his exposed hands as he neared the defense shield. This close to the ground it wasn’t hard to push through it, due to the energy bleeding into the ground.
“Start the dance.” He whispered into his comm unit.
As if in cue, he heard the MRL’s start to fire in the distance and saw the incoming tracks of the rockets as they arched up and over before slamming into the shield. Almost immediately the Thrakee opened up with their counter battery and anti-missile systems. Those took down half of the incoming ordnance and the return fire wouldn’t hit anything, as the launchers had already moved to a new location. The second MRL’s launched their payloads and soon after that, the third group. Ben-Sharon put it out of his mind and concentrated on slithering around the rocks to get into position for the kill. Lifting his head, he found one Thrakee trooper fiddling with his weapon, while the other sat back in his thermal blanket and watched the fireworks overhead. He must be chuckling to himself thinking how stupid the humans were, wasting ammo against the shield. As an old hand, he didn’t get very excited by this, unlike some of his fellow troopers down on the plateau. Clinging to the rock face Ben-Sharon shot the one leaning back against the rock in the head, just as one of the MRL rockets exploded. The second one didn’t even know his squad mate was dead, or really feel the shaft from the bolt gun as it entered the side of his head.
“High point secure. Send the rest of the men up.”
“Ten-four.”
Ben-Sharon switched the Thrakee tri-barrel off and dismounted it, as with the bio-lock on the weapon they couldn’t use it, mores the pity. Even as experienced as he was, it was still a nail biting wait for the rest of his team to arrive.
“Coming in.” Menendez whispered in his ear.
“Come on in. The coast is clear.”
“Nice fireworks display the Lt is putting on for us, Sarge.”
“Yeah. Let’s hope it keeps the lizard’s attention elsewhere.” Menendez came around the rock face followed by the rest of the team, and she took a knee beside him.
“Okay. You all know what to do. MPAT’s in position. Your primary target is the shield generator. After that, the heavy weapons units on the edge of the scarp.”
“Hurrah!”
“Get your fly-eyes out as quickly as possible and find the weak spot at the rear of the emplacements. I doubt you’ll have more than one, maybe two shots before all hell comes down on our head, so look sharp.” Ben-Sharon growled.
“Come on Sarge. This isn’t our first rodeo.”
“I heard that before Hendrickson, and if I remember, you missed that fucking great big tank on your last outing.”
“Give me a break! Shit. How was I to know it was a holo!” All that got back was a bunch of raspberries from the rest of the team.
“Put a sock in it and get to work.” Even so, he couldn’t hide the laughter in his voice. This bunch of wanabe Terran Marines was turning out all right. He was proud of them. Between Menendez and him they got the tri-barrel set up and keyed in to its field of fire, and just as they finished, the MPAT teams checked in.
“How you doing back there Jackson?”
“I have all the drop lines secured and ready, Sarge.”
“Good. All teams. On my mark.” He waited for the ‘click’ returns before keying his comm unit.
“Sharon to Lt.”
“Lt actual - go.”
“All ready here.”
“Good, go for it.”
“Mark!” He barked as he switched back. The moment he did, the super velocity MPAT rockets flashed across the top of the plateau and blew the shield generator to hell and gone. The moment the shield dropped, the incoming rounds started impacting the ground, sending the Thrakee into a panic.
“So much for being prepared for the worst, assholes.” Menendez muttered, seeing Thrakee bodies being blown apart and blasted into the air.
“Shit! Get your heads down. INCOMING!” Ben-Sharon yelled. The Thrakee were quicker off the mark than he’d expected. That was going to make taking out the heavy weapons emplacements a lot harder. Even as he yelled, six MPAT rockets shot across the plateau and blew five of the units to scrap.
“Shit! Hendrickson, you shithead!”
“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.”
“Shut the fuck up and keep firing.”
“Oh fuck! Here they come.” Menendez shouted. Sharon took a look over the top of the rock he was sheltering behind and saw what she meant. It looked as if someone had kicked over an anthill, five hundred or so Thrakee were charging towards them, shooting as they came, and sending blooper grenade rounds ahead of them. The ground in front exploded into flying shrapnel and rock shards.
“Oh fuck!” Menendez muttered as she fell.
“Damn it girl. You hit?”
“Shit yes… shoulder.”
“All weapons units disabled, Sarge.”
“Good, put down some covering fire and get the hell out of here.”
“What… what about you?”
“I gave you an order trooper! Get the fuck out of here NOW!”
“You need to get out of here as well, Ben.”
“How many times do I have to tell you people that my name isn’t Ben… Oh what the fuck. Ben will do.” He muttered, trying to hold her shoulder together. She wasn’t just hit, the rock shard had practically ripped her arm off at the shoulder, and she was quickly bleeding out. Even the ‘quick heal’ wasn’t slowing the blood enough. Behind them, the tri-barrel started up on auto, sweeping back and forth. It wouldn’t stop them for long, nor was it supposed to. Just long enough for the strike team to get out and down the waiting ropes.
“You need to go, Ben. I’ll hold them off for a while when they come over the top.”
“We’ll hold them off together girl.”
“Damn! Just wish I could have got you into bed at least once.” She gasped as the pain hit again.
“You will girl, once this is all over.”
“In your dreams maybe.” She gave him a weak smile, knowing she was dying from blood loss. He kissed her then, and for a moment, her lips locked hungrily with his.
“Don’t you worry, girl. I’ll see you again soon. You rest.”
Just then a grenade exploded in front of the tri-barrel, knocking it out of alignment. That gave the Thrakee the opening they needed and they stormed over the top. They both managed to get off a few shots before the storm of blaster bolts tore them apart.
“Fuck that hurts.” Was the last thing Isaac Ben-Sharon thought as he plunged into darkness.
Once the shield and the heavy weapons emplacements were taken out, the only thing the Thrakee could do was charge down the slope and engage the Terran Marines. Once they’d been pulled out of position, the Marines met them head on, and the battle dissolved into a hand-to-hand melee. The few shuttlecraft that managed to lift off were quickly blown out of the sky, and within an hour, the last battle was over. At that point, General Marks and Richard Penn flew in and surveyed the battle scene, smiling slightly. Knowing Michael, he was betting the Thrakee here put up a lot tougher fight than the real ones would, or at least he hoped so. If that was the case, he knew which way the battle would go. Sadly, when that happened, anyone that died then would really be dead.
“Well, there’s the army you asked for, Richard.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting the simulation to be as real as this.”
“They had to be battle ready, Richard.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?”
“I have the feeling we shouldn’t tell them it wasn’t for real.” Clayborn Marks looked at him a moment and nodded.
“A few already know.” He mused. “So the word will finally get out.”
“True, but most won’t believe it.”
“You don’t want to take away their feeling of price, I take it.” Richard nodded.
“Nothing to gain from that, and it might have the opposite effect.”
“Okay, I’ll go along with that. So, we hand out promotions and medals as if it were the real thing, right?”
“Right.”
* * * * * *
Judy Menendez woke up and rolled over, feeling warm and cozy as she pulled the covers up over her shoulder. The moment she did, she suddenly sat up, touching her shoulder remembering her she’d been wounded. Pulling back the lace nightgown, she looked at her shoulder, expecting to see bandages, or at least a scar, but the skin was smooth and free of blemishes as it had been before.
“What the hell?” She looked around the room in wonder. She should be in hospital, or in the barracks at least, not this comfortable looking bedroom with lace curtains and flowered bedspread. Just then, the door opened and in walked Sargeant Ben-Sharon and General Marks.
“As you were.” Sharon barked as she started to get out of bed and stand to attention.
“Good to see you awake and well, Menendez.”
“Um… me too… I guess.” She looked at their smiling faces a moment. “What happened?”
“Nothing much. We won the battle and the war is over. For now at least.”
“But... but… that’s not what I meant… sir.”
“I know it isn’t, but I’ll let Lieutenant Ben-Sharon explain that to you, Sergeant.”
“Sergeant… But I’m a Corporal…”
“I know. I just dropped by to congratulate you and hand you your stripes and the commendation.”
“Commendation?”
“Yes, you deserve it, but I’ll let Isaac explain it all to you. Congratulations, Sergeant.”
“Um… thank you, sir.” Clayborn Marks saluted the young woman in the bed and left all the explaining to Ben-Sharon.
“Ben… Isaac! What the hell is going on?” Taking his beret off, he sat down on the side of the bed.
“Did you mean it?” He asked, giving him a dark look.
“Mean what?”
“That kiss you gave me up on the plateau.” Judy blushed and pulled the bed covers up. “Was if for real?”
“I hope so, girl. Otherwise you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Wait… trouble? What the hell is going on? I… we should be dead!”
“Well, we are sort of, but first I have to tell you a story, and get you to promise not to tell anyone.” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“A story?” He nodded. Slowly, and as carefully as he could, he told her what the war with the Thrakee was all about. As expected, she got mad, glaring at him with her dark eyes.
“So it was all for nothing!” She yelled, jumping out of bed. “Of all the sneaky, underhanded, low life, deceitful pricks in the world, I had to go and fall in love with the lowest, bottom feeding, scum sucking…” Forgetting the lace nightgown didn’t hide much of her naked body underneath.
“Did you just say fall in love, Judy?” Ben-Sharon asked in a soft voice, looking a little bemused.
“…prick… what? No… I didn’t say that… did I?” Sharon nodded, seeing her nibble her lower lip, frowning and blinking her eyes. “Oh shit!”
“So, you love me, right?”
“What… no… I take it back. Love you! I should kick the living crap out of…" She stuttered to a halt as Ben-Sharon came and stood very close to her. “Oh shit.” She muttered.
“Too late to take it back Judy, because I love you too.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her.
Chapter Seven
Telluria Prime
Sitting back in his comfortable chair behind his desk Director Markoff had similar thoughts as the Professor as he contemplated the wall screen and its view of Earth from space. His latest check of incoming starships, both naval and civilian told the same story. Penn’s virus program was still running, and he was still no closer to rediscovering the location of that accursed planet. After his meeting with Professor Veolan he’d had a research team go through the imperial archives, especially the older documents that still hadn’t been transcribed to an electronic medium and they did so immediately. What he’d found once he’d sorted all the data into its proper order disturbed him even more. The Professor had been wrong in one respect, the documents turned out to be a transcription of earlier records from another species entirely, one who was no longer a threat to anyone. They too had discovered Earth some 100,000 years ago but had seen it more as a potential of supplying troops for their never-ending wars with surrounding Empires. They’d taken the indigenous humanoid race and had genetically re-engineered them into soldiers; they had then let the humans breed until there were sufficient numbers to harvest and train into front line troops. All went well for some time until two events occurred at the same moment. First, the Ormlec were annihilated when the humans turned on their masters, and second, a catastrophic eruption of a volcano on Earth wiped out 90% of the human race after they’d all returned to their home planet. Subsequent research by several cultures suggests that fewer than 20,000 humans remained alive after the eruption and its aftereffects, and assumed incorrectly that they were no longer a threat. Fools that they were, they’d never considered the genetically engineered humans will to survive, or their tenacious nature. The historical data had also answered the question of the human instinctive primeval hatred of reptiles, as that’s what the Ormlec were, being the prehistoric ancestors of the Thrakee. It also clarified the charming fairy tale story of their ‘garden of Eden’ and the story about the reptile, or snake causing their expulsion. It made sense that the altered humans could never go back to being children of the forest as they’d once been. That idyllic life had been forever stripped from their genes, and it condemned them to perpetual cycles of war. Just the thought of them getting off planet in their own ships with weapons to equal the Empire sent a small shiver running down his back. Now, it became even more imperative he find that accursed planet and finish them off once and for all, before his nightmare came true. Even with all those dark thoughts, an idea struck him, one that hadn’t occurred to him before, and on impulse, which in itself was unusual for him, he mentally searched for Bema Greta’s comm number and made the connection.
