Tommy Thorn Marked (26 page)

“Were those ours, Lieutenant?”

Sloan followed the three fighters, one trailing a long trail of dark black smoke, until they disappeared behind the next ridge. “I believe they were, Corporal Hemet. I believe they were.”

He then took a quick inventory of what was left of his team. There were seven left, one who was badly injured and being carried by a makeshift litter. There were enough supplies to last at least a week.
Then what
? he thought.
How long can we hold out in
these
mountains? Surrender?
He pushed the thought away immediately. He had read the reports on how Vargins treated prisoners. No, they would fight and hold out for retrieval.
The Corps will never leave us behind…never,
he thought.

“Take five,” Sloan said and watched as all but Decker instantly collapsed into the rocky soil, most breaking out pre-packaged food.

“Take it easy on the chow—it may have to last us awhile,” Decker said. He flipped open his faceplate and moved close enough to Sloan so as not to use comm. “Anything on a pickup, LT?”

Sloan checked his wristcomm. They had been sending out coded messages for the last half hour. “Nothing yet, Deck.”

“It’s going to be dark soon,” Decker said, scanning the horizon.

“I know, that’s why they call it night,” Sloan joked.

Decker nodded sarcastically. “What about a camp?”

“Let’s get over that ridge.” Sloan looked up from his wristcomm and pointed. “We’ll drop down into that valley. Map says there’s a steam—that’s where we’ll set up camp.”

Then he added, “How’s Piya?”

Decker glanced at the wounded warrior and shook his head.

“Damn,” Sloan said and moved away.

Tommy wasted no time, blowing his canopy clear even before the Rapier had come to a complete stop. “Rahagin,” he yelled, tearing at his restraints. “Rahagin, talk to me, buddy.”

Now clear of his own cockpit, Tommy walked along the port wing panel’s root for a few steps before jumping down into the soft sand and moving back along the battered fuselage. He located the aft canopy’s emergency release T-handle, hit the panel release then, grabbing the now exposed handle, scrambled back a few feet, letting the jettisoned lanyard play out. “I’m blowing the canopy!” he yelled, turned away from the still-smoldering fighter and yanked.

There was the sound of a cartridge firing, then a whoosh as the rear canopy rocketed up, tumbling through expended gray gas, and came to rest in the stream. Before the splash settled, Tommy had leaped to the Rapier, jumped on what was left of the wing panel, and clambered up to the rear cockpit. “Rahagin,” he said while easing the tacnav’s head back against the headrest. “I’ve got to get us clear. Rahagin, can you hear me?” he repeated while working on the tacnav’s harness.

He almost had Rahagin freed when he heard the sound of approaching fighters. The two Rapiers were just coming into view, flying low to avoid any stray Venom. Tommy rose up and continued to wave his arms in a wide arc as the fighters waggled their wing panels, went to full power, and rocketed straight up toward space—and home.

With his friends gone, an eerie silence filled the area, and Tommy got back to the work of freeing Rahagin. “Okay, buddy, I know this is going to hurt.” Tommy glanced down at the blood seeping from the soaked bandage. “But we’ve got to move.”

He had gotten some leverage under Rahagin’s limp arms and was beginning to ease him up when he felt the hard blunt end of a blaster being pushed against his ribs.

Tommy released Rahagin and, motivated by loud alien shouts, slowly straightened, raising his hands.

More yelling and a violent jab with the blaster got Tommy down off the Rapier, where he stood, hands high, in front of a small squad of Vargus infantrymen dressed in brown-green, lightly armored fighting suits. The alien continued to yell at Tommy as if by speaking louder he would be able to understand their strange grunts. But after a time, from somewhere down the pass, their apparent commander’s armed hover bike came gliding into the clearing.

“Can yo hear my Tar-chun?” the alien asked after dismounting.

“Tommy nodded as two of the aliens jumped up on the Rapier to examine the rear cockpit.

“Take offta helm Tar-chun!” he commanded.

Tommy released the helmet’s seal, pulled it off, and tossed it to the ground.

There was a look of surprise and astonishment on the alien’s face and an audible gasp. “you nop Tar-Chun!”

Not sure how to respond, Tommy just stared at the Vargin.

“You nop Tar-Chun!” he repeated with disdain.

Does this buffoon think only Tarchein fight for the empire? Tommy thought.

One of the two soldiers on the Rapier pulled off Rahagin’s helmet and dropped it, letting it roll off the wing panel and onto the sand in front of Tommy, before shouting and pointing excitedly toward the Dipole. Tommy assumed they were taken aback by Rahagin’s appearance.

“Tommy,” Rahagin moaned.

“It’s okay, Ra—”

The leader struck Tommy across the face with his blaster pistol before he could finish.

“You nop!” he shouted. Then pointing toward the Rapier, and began to rattle off a long stream of gibberish.

At the end of this rant, one of the aliens pointed his blaster rifle into the rear cockpit and fired.

Tommy made a move, but the commander raised and pointed his pistol. He then paused, took off his helmet, and breathed in the nauseating smell of Rahagin’s recently seared flesh.

There were a lot of strange-looking aliens in the galaxy. Tommy thought he’d seen most of them, and certainly beauty was in the eye of the beholder, but these guys…

The tops of their long heads came to a rounded point, which was quite a bit smaller than their massive chins and sparsely covered with thick fleshy spikes that poked straight up. The mouth was a lipless slit that covered the width of the odd-shaped lower face, just below a pair of nose openings. And they had a roundish flap that lay back, attached at the front, against each earhole; each of which was positioned almost in the back of their heads.

“Why you fight wit Tar-Chun?” the leader asked while sweeping his blaster hand around the crash site.

Not really sure what the Vargus soldier wanted, Tommy just stood motionless.

The leader became even more agitated. “Why you fight wit Tar-Chun!” he said again and struck Tommy hard across the cheek, knocking him to the ground.

The sight of blood trickling from Tommy’s face brought jeers and heckles from the dozen or so troops, all of which had gathered into a semicircle around the confrontation.

The Vargus squad leader now moved to a position directly over Tommy and, with that hideous mouth drawn back into what must have been a grin, lowered and aimed his weapon.

Suddenly, the air was full of blaster bolts. Vargins wailed and went down in heaps. Tommy’s executioner spun around to meet the threat, but he was hit by a flash of energy before he could get his blaster up past his hip. In seconds it was over.

Sloan’s team, moving from covered positions, cautiously advanced into the clearing, now strewn with dead or dying soldiers. They moved methodically, examining flesh-filled chunks of fighting suits, and began blasting, point-blank, any Vargin that twitched—all, that is, except the squad leader.

“Tommy?” one of the Tarchein warriors asked. “Tommy Thorn,” he repeated and took off his helmet.

Sloan stepped over the cowering, wounded Vargin and pulled Tommy to his feet before putting a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Sloan!” Recognition was finally settling in. “How—I mean, what are you doing?” Tommy excitedly asked, grabbing his old roommate with both hands.

Lieutenant Steel stepped back and mocked, “You think the fleet’s the only ones fighting”

Tommy smiled as Sloan jerked a thumb back toward the crashed Rapier. “Told ya flying was dangerous…”

“How did you find me?” Tommy interrupted.

“We saw a ship go down and—“

Tommy flinched as Decker blasted another dying Vargin soldier.

“Just making sure, LT,” Decker yelled as he pushed the Vargin solider off the rear canopy rail. He toppled off the demolished wing panel and flopped onto the ground like a bag of wet sand.

Sloan smiled and continued. “As I was saying, we saw a bird go down. We were heading this way, so we thought we’d check it out.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. This guy—” Tommy pointed at the leader, who was moaning and clutching at a blaster wound. “—was just about to end me.”

Sloan nodded and turned toward the Vargin. “Oh yeah, we still got this ugly to deal with.”

“You nop Tar-Chun,” the wounded alien cried.

“Where’s your nav?” Sloan asked Tommy over his shoulder.

Tommy glanced at the wreckage and started to speak when Sergeant Decker interrupted.

“Looks like the navigator’s been blasted, LT,” he shouted, still staring at the charred stump that used to be Rahagin’s head.

“They killed him in cold blood!” Tommy snapped.

Sloan let his stare, full of hate, fall on the Vargin.

“You nop Tar-Chun,” the Vargus commander wailed, frantically waving both hands in front of his face. “You nop Tar-chun!”

“You sorry, simple-minded pinhead,” Sloan said dryly as he adjusted his blaster’s energy setting and snapped off the safety. “The whole damn galaxy is Tarchein,” he continued—then calmly fired two shots into the Vargin’s quivering chest.

There are currently two classes of Imperial annihilators still active with the fleet. The Viceroy class, first introduced over sixty standard years ago, which has, for the most part been replaced by the newer and much improved Devastator class, or DCAs. All DCAs are manufactured in the Hadra orbital shipyard. Never intended to endure the stresses of atmospheric flight, annihilators are built in space to stay in space. Each Devastator class annihilator uses a state-of-the-art targeting computer to aim and fire banks of sixteen high-energy rail guns, twenty-four plasma cannons, and forty-eight long-range medium-yield blasters. They can also carry up to one hundred self-guided explosive spheres called Fireballs, and thirty high-yield antimatter torpedoes. These powerful warships, when properly deployed, can lay down lethal amounts of precisely targeted munitions to both planet and spaceborne targets. In addition, although a massive warship, annihilators have a relatively small crew consisting of only 130 members, seventy of these assigned to the fire-control stations.

A fully operational DCA is capable of inflecting an unimaginable amount of damage, albeit to primarily stationary or slow-moving targets, but these slow, heavily shielded ships, equipped with both D-drive and hyperdrive propulsion systems, have limited defensive weaponry. And that, along with an inherent lack of maneuverability, requires a significant number of support and escort ships, usually in the form of highly maneuverable, heavily armed gunners and battle cruisers.

Sloan whistled loudly and pointed toward Decker, then with two fingers drew a circle in the air, to which Decker nodded and started gathering up the team.

“You got a survival kit in that tub?” Sloan motioned toward the fighter.