THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION (11 page)

“A frontal attack from any direction except the rear is out of the question, unless we want to lose all our people.” Captain Erik Sanders opened this discussion.

“Wish we had some air support, Cap.”

“How about a battle field nuke while you’re wishing.” Erik shot back.

“We could try a ‘HALO’ drop.”

“Too risky, besides which, there’s no way they could get through that shield, and we’ve done that before, so they’ll be expecting it.”

“You’re right there. Even with a mortar and artillery pounding, there’s no way to ensure we’d get all their heavy weapons emplacements.” The Captain added.

“It also means they probably have an eye in the sky, so anything we do, they’ll see.”

“Not if we blind them with smoke and CS gas they won’t.”

“Then what? I’m betting those heavy weapons are on auto. The moment they detect movement they start firing.”

“Yeah, and as this is their main base they won’t be running out of power packs or replacement barrels any time soon.” While they chatted back and forth, Ted Lewis studied the picture the ‘hawks’ were sending back.

“Oh yeah.”

“What’s up, Teddy?” Captain Sanders asked. In answer, he shot a short section of vid to his commander and the other Lt’s.

“On three sides we have steep, cleared ground to cover, but on the fourth side it’s a sheer rock face dropping almost eight hundred feet into a fast flowing river, see?”

“So?”

“What if we climb the wall and come in from the back side and slip under their shield?” Silence met his remarks.

“Oh, doing the Wolf and Quebec thing huh. Doable if we can find a few people with mountain climbing experience, but what about the time factor. No way are you going to climb that in the dark and get there before first light.”

“Wait! Don’t we have gecko suits?” For a moment, there was silence on the net as no one could answer the question.

“Let me check with HQ - hold one.” Ted switched frequencies and after a short wait the duty officer came online.

“HQ - go.”

“Lieutenant Lewis here. Do we have any gecko suits available?”

“Wait one Lt.” While he waited, Ted zoomed in on the scarp, but as far as he could see from the angle the hawks were at, the cliff looked flat and smooth as a sheet of glass. The only way to get up it was with the gecko suits. Ordinary climbing gear would take far too long. He quickly put together a list of weapons and equipment they’d need once they reached the top and worked out a rough battle plan.

“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.