MERCS: Crimson Worlds Successors (28 page)

Dan Sullivan’s voice blasted out of her com.  “Colonel, I think we found the main engineering section.”

Her eyes snapped up to her display.  Sullivan was fairly close to her location.  “Have you secured the position?”

“Most of it, Colonel.  There’s a group of enemy soldiers barricaded in what looks like the central core.  They’ve got a heavy autocannon in there, and they’re really fortified.  I wanted to check with you before I did anything.  I don’t have any heavy ordnance here, just three squads, and they’re pretty shot up.”

She looked again at the display.  Sullivan had 24 troops, including himself.  An autocannon with a good crew could drop them all in a confined space like that.

“Set a cordon around the enemy position, Captain, but do not assault…”  He eyes were scanning the OB scrolling across her display.  “…I’ll send down some heavier backup.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“I want to know immediately if they do anything but sit where they are.  Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Kuragina out.”

She turned around and walked back ten meters to the last intersection.  She turned right, heading for Sullivan’s position, activating her com as she did.  She didn’t have much heavy ordnance in the base itself—and no time to bring anything in from farther away.

She flipped on her com.  “General Cain, I think we found the engineering section, sir.  But there’s a problem…”

*        *        *        *        *

Barkley was leaning over, gasping for breath.  He felt like he was going to vomit, but he managed to hold it back.  He and his dozen companions had slammed at the door with the table until they dropped it from sheer exhaustion.  The hatch was dented and scratched, but it was still in place.  And they were still prisoners.

“Maybe they just don’t want us wandering out of here and getting in the way.”  The voice came from the center of the room.  Barkley turned and looked.  It was Steve Weld, the leader of one of the other teams.  His crew was smaller than the one Grax and Barkley led, but he’d been in the game just as long.

“Maybe.”  Barkley was still panting as he tried to speak.  “But what if they lose that fight going on out there?  Then what?”

Weld didn’t answer.  Barkley took another deep breath and then yelled, “We need another group up here.”  He waved his arms.  “Grab the table…let’s go.”

He stepped aside, allowing those who responded to go past him.  He almost reached down and grabbed the table himself, but he knew he was spent.  And the job required every bit of strength they could muster.  That meant someone fresh had to take his place.

He turned and looked toward the door, but he froze halfway.  There was a sound.  It was barely audible but he caught in anyway, some kind of hissing noise from the ceiling.  Then he saw people start dropping.

He spun around.  “Gas!” he shouted.  But it was too late.  Most of the others had already fallen, and he felt the strange odor enter his nostrils.  He felt panic seize him, but that only lasted a second or two.  Then everything went black.

*        *        *        *        *

Axe moved through the corridor, stepping over debris and the occasional enemy body.  He’d been begging for Cain’s permission to follow his people into the station, and the Eagles’ commander had finally relented.  Cain’s hesitancy had been understandable.  Axe wore only a survival suit, enough to keep him alive on Eris, but not much protection in a fight.  But now, the station was mostly secured.

His stomach was twisted into a knot, and he could hear his heart beat pounding in his ears.  Against all odds, he had managed to follow his people.  Were they here?  Was Ellie here?

He tried to control his expectations.  The battle had been an enormously savage one, and there were thousands dead.  Perhaps he had come all this way only to find his people dead, killed in the struggle or executed by their panicked captors.

Still, his excitement drove him on.  Even this chance had seemed an impossibility a few weeks before.  And maybe, just maybe…

Roderick Vance was walking next to him.  The Martian spy had insisted on coming along.  Axe knew that Vance was just as anxious to get a look at the mysterious facility that had operated for so long undiscovered right under the nose of the Confederation, though his reasons were different.

Vance stepped ahead, and he motioned for Axe to follow him around the corner.  The Earther assumed Vance was getting instructions on his com unit, perhaps even from General Cain.  He felt a flush of excitement.  Maybe Cain’s soldiers had found the captives!

Vance stopped abruptly.  He hesitated for a few seconds then he turned around.  “Axe…” he said, his tone grim.

Axe felt his heart sink.  “The captives?”

Vance stared through the clear visor of his helmet, and his expression was one of sympathy.  “The Eagles found a room with several thousand prisoners.”  He paused again, then croaked, “They’re all dead, Axe.  They were gassed.”

Axe felt all the strength drain from his body.  His legs went weak, and he reached out to grab the wall so he didn’t fall down. 
No.  No, please…not after all this…

“Axe, we have to go down there.”  Vance put a gloved hand on Axe’s shoulder.  “We need to see if you can identify any of your people.

*        *        *        *        *

“Be careful, Bull.”  Cain was standing in the hallway outside the engineering section.  Sullivan’s people had held the room inside, but he’d pulled them back.  “Just blast the door, and get the hell out.  No heroics.  You understand me?”

“Yes, General.”  Bull Trent was standing next to Cain holding a heavy rocket launcher.  It was a two person weapon for anyone else.

When Cain had asked for volunteers, he wasn’t surprised when Bull Trent had been the first to step forward.  The massive non-com was on his short list as one of the best of the Eagles.  He’d considered making Trent an officer several times, but the man was the perfect sergeant.  He was at his best working closely with his men, and Cain had worried he’d take the best non-com he had and turn him into a mediocre lieutenant.  It didn’t make a lot of sense at first glance, but he’d seen it happen before, too many times.

Darius Cain wanted his soldiers operating at peak efficiency, and at whatever rank they performed best.  He didn’t like to cheat his people, and he’d long ago awarded the veteran sergeant a triple share of the pay and spoils.  But he kept him where he was, in command of a crack platoon…and ready to respond when Cain needed someone for a special job.  Like this one.

“The rest of you, we charge the second the rocket goes in.”

“We?”

It was Teller on the com.  Cain turned around to see his second in command standing a few meters away.

“Please tell me you’re not seriously thinking about going along?” he asked, with a fatigue in his voice that suggested he already knew the answer.

“Yes, I’m going, Colonel.  Whoever built this base, they are the same pieces of shit who hit us on Lysandria…and wiped out one of our platoons on Karelia.  I want to see what they’ve got firsthand.”

Teller sighed.  “Well, I know better than to argue.”  He reached around and pulled the assault rifle from his back.  “So, I’m going with you.”

*        *        *        *        *

Vance had seen his share of horrors, and he’d long before realized there were some things so terrible, you simply never became desensitized to them.  The hold stretching out before him was one of them.  There were bodies everywhere, two thousand at least.  They’d been crammed together in the room, and it looked like they’d fallen in place.

That’s how nerve gas works
, Vance thought grimly.  He imagined a life where he wasn’t so familiar with the tools of mass killing, but he knew it was far too late for that.  Vance wasn’t a soldier, but he’d seen just about every way men could devise to slaughter each other.  And he knew soldiers, some of the very best, and he’d seen firsthand what the years of war did to them.  Courage and devotion to duty were all well and good, but no man could witness unspeakable horror day after day, watch friends die in the fires of battle, and not be changed by it…damaged.

Axe was trying to make his way across the room.  There was nowhere to step without climbing over the grotesquely intertwined bodies, but he worked his way across the room, pulling aside the corpses, staring into cold dead eyes.

“Anyone?”  Vance’s voice was soft, sympathetic.

“No,” came the reply.  “Not one.”  There was hope in Axe’s voice.  “I’ve been around the room twice, and I haven’t seen anyone I recognize.”  He stared across the room at Vance.  “They’re not here,” he said, trying to stand up amid the heaps of bodies.  “They’re not here!  They must have been sent somewhere else.”  It was news that would have crushed him an hour before.  He had no idea where his people were…where Ellie was.  But right now, anyplace was better than this horrible execution chamber.

“They’re not here,” he repeated loudly.

*        *        *        *        *

Cain stood in the room, surrounded by the bodies of the enemy.  Trent had managed to score a bullseye with the rocket launcher, and he’d done it without getting hit.  The rocket exploded in the room, giving Cain’s people a chance to rush the door before the enemy could recover and blow them away as they entered.

It had worked, after a fashion, at least.  The Eagles had six dead and another ten wounded, including Cain himself, who had taken a shot to the arm.  But he knew it could have been worse, much worse.

“You should get to the infirmary, sir.”  It was Ernesto Alcabedo, the commander of Cain’s bodyguard.  There was a pall of guilt hanging over his voice.  There wasn’t much the veteran could have done to prevent his commander from charging headlong at the enemy, but it was apparent he still viewed Cain’s wound as a symbol of his own dishonor.

“I’m fine, Ernesto.  It’s just a scratch.”  He slapped the captain on his back with an armored hand.  “And stop acting like you did something wrong.  I’m fine.”

He turned and looked out over the room.  It was huge, probably 40 meters square, filled with equipment and machinery.  His people were moving around, checking the enemy wounded.  Cain’s mind drifted back to Lysandria, to the booby-trapped armor.

“Be careful with those wounded,” he said into the com.  “Remember Lysandria.” 
Yes
, he thought. 
Remember Lysandria…

He felt a cold pit in his stomach.  He flashed a thought to the AI, opening the general com line.  “Eagles, this is General Cain.  All personnel are to move to the surface at once and prepare to evacuate to the fleet.  I repeat, all personnel are to evacuate immediately.”

“What is it, Darius?”  It was Teller, on their private line.

“Just a hunch, Erik, but an enemy who would booby-trap its soldiers’ armor…”

“Would do the same to a base…” Teller finished his friend’s thought.  “You’re right.  Let’s get everybody out of here.  Now!”

*        *        *        *        *

The battle was over, the slaving ring that had brought unimaginable misery to thousands of Earth survivors had been destroyed.  But there was a heaviness in the air, not just because of the casualties, but because the victory was so incomplete, at least in terms of providing answers.  Whoever was behind the operation—and the attacks on the Eagles and the other unexplained incidents—was still out there, still a deadly threat.  And virtually a complete mystery.

Cain’s intuition had saved his Eagles once again…most of them, at least.  The base had indeed been booby-trapped, but most of his people were on their way back to orbit—or at least in cover at a safe distance—when the 500 megaton warhead detonated.  The base was obliterated…and another 47 of Cain’s people, the only ones who hadn’t gotten out in time, were killed.  Their deaths tore at him.  If he’d paid more attention, if he’d only realized the danger sooner…  But the evacuation had saved almost a thousand Eagles—including Teller and himself.  Not to mention Roderick Vance and Axe.

“I’m sorry we were too late to rescue your people, Axe.”  Darius Cain put his other thoughts aside and rested his heavy gloved hand gently on the Earther.  Axe didn’t have armor, and Cain knew he could break his new friend’s shoulder if he wasn’t careful.  “But don’t give up hope.  I am going to put all my resources to tracking down whoever is behind all of this.”  He paused, trying to make his voice as convincing as possible.  “We may yet find them.”

Axe nodded.  “Thank you, General.  For everything.”  He hesitated.  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you.  There is nothing left for me on Earth, and whatever chance there is of finding my people, I’d like to be part of it.”

There was a hint of hopefulness in Axe’s voice, though Cain rather doubted its sincerity.  The residents of Jericho, including Axe’s wife, were lost now, somewhere among the thousand inhabited worlds of humanity.  Finding them alive was an enormously unlikely proposition, and Axe struck Cain as a realist, not unlike himself.  Still, he hoped his new friend could find some solace in self-deception, and in the well-meaning lies from those around him.  Cain always faced everything head on in his life, cut through to the cold reality of each situation.  It was an exhausting way to live, and if Axe could continue under the belief that he would find his people, Darius didn’t see the harm in it. 

“You are welcome, Axe.  There is always room for another good man among the Eagles.”

*        *        *        *        *

Cain was standing in Eagle One’s cargo hold, facing away from Vance and staring at a pile of weapons his troops had collected from the enemy dead down on the surface.  The hasty withdrawal had severely limited what they’d been able to bring back to the ship, and these few guns were just about all he had to go on in tracking down the enemy.

“I have faced fanatics before, but I have never battled an enemy that murdered their own wounded soldiers.  Even to strike at an enemy.”  Darius’ voice was soft, hollow.  His Eagles gave him their loyalty, followed him into one incarnation of hell after another.  He couldn’t imagine using them in such a callous and calculating way.