"I, Mengsk" - читать интересную книгу автора (McNeill Graham)

CHAPTER 7

THE DROPSHIP SCREAMED THROUGH THE UPPER atmosphere of Sonyan, trailing fire from its wings like a swooping phoenix. The armored plates of its heat-shielding rippled with blazing orange fire and left a streaking contrail of vapor in the craft's wake as it dropped rapidly toward the planet's surface.

As flying machines went, it was proof that with a big enough pair of engines, you could get anything to stay in the air. Its front wings were stubby, swept forward and down, behind which enormous jet engines coughed to life as the craft hit the atmosphere.

Dropships were designed to carry Confederate military forces unto battle in safety and at speed—though they achieved neither objective particularly well—and as Arcturus gripped the metal stanchion next to his head he knew that, regardless of any other considerations, comfort had certainly not been uppermost in the designers' minds.

Dropships could carry anything from troops to siege tanks in their transport compartments, and thus the cavernous bay housing Arcturus's armored marines—designated "Dominion section"—was an oily, dust-filled metallic cavern.

The dropship shuddered as it leveled out, wind roar and engine noise making conversation impossible unless carried out over the helmet comms. As well as the six armored soldiers, the dropship carried a huge siege tank, its colossal, groaning mass held fast with clanking chains and filling much of the dropship's internal space. It was breaking regs putting this many soldiers in with a siege tank, but the orders had come from on high to get them there like this, and Arcturus wasn't about to question orders this early in his career.

His five soldiers sat toward the rear of the red-lit compartment on uncomfortable metal benches that looked as though a blind welder had attached them to the fuselage's interior.

"So what's the situation, LT?" asked Yancy Gray for the hundredth time. "What are we flying into?"

Arcturus sighed. The irrepressible kid from Tarsonis never let up until he got an answer and he had a strange, naive belief that the chain of command would keep him informed al every stage of what was going on. He hadn't been with the military long enough to know that the grunts on the front line were like mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed shit.

"Aw, man, how many times you gonna keep asking that, Yancy?" said de Santo, her face belligerent. "LT's gonna tell us what's up when he knows. Right, LT?"

Diamond de Santo (or Dia, as her section-mates knew her) was a dark-skinned girl who had grown up on Tyrador IX, the daughter of indentured workers who toiled in one of the many spas and resort cities that made the planet such a refuge for the scions of the Old Families. Armies of men and women who owed money to one of the many Confederate financial institutions were forced to work there to repay their debts and ensure that guests didn't need to lift so much as a finger.

Needless to say, Diamond de Santo hadn't enjoyed that life much, and she'd signed up at the first recruiting office she could find on her eighteenth birthday. In the six months Arcturus had known her, he had seen the core of a good soldier, but one who had such a chip on her shoulder that it kept her mouth truculent and her manner rebellious.

Arcturus liked her immensely.

And by some strange, inverted magnetism, de Santo recognized a kindred soul and displayed a loyalty to Arcturus that reminded him of the bond between his father and Achton Feld.

"Hey, I'm just asking," said Yancy. "Nothing wrong with wanting to know what's going on, is there? I was supposed to be on leave until this new assignment came down the pipe."

"We were all supposed to be on leave," said de Santo pointedly, making no secret of her irritation at that particular stroke of genius from the brass.

She wasn't the only one annoyed that their leave had been postponed. Arcturus had planned to return to Korhal to see his mother and Little Dot. He hadn't been back to see them since he'd joined up, though he had written to them plenty of times over the Confed-network.

His mother had eventually answered, though her words didn't have the same openness and warmth as did the letters she had sent him at the academy. Her correspondence was filled with news of his sister and of Korhal (and its troubles) but made little mention of his father beyond his continued good health.

Dorothy hadn't replied to him at all, and he knew she was probably still smarting with annoyance at his sudden departure. Hopefully, once this mission was over, he'd have a chance to patch things up with his family, as the last year and a half had made him realize how much he missed them.

Even his falher, which surprised Arcturus immensely.

Of course, (here had been a greal deal of correspondence between Arcturus and Juliana, and it seemed she remained interested in him though light-years separated them.

They had arranged to meet on Tyrador IX before he headed onward to Korhal when his next period of leave eventually came through, and he was forced to admit he was looking forward to seeing her again.

Arcturus's reverie ended when Yancy nodded his helmeted head toward him and said. "I'll bet you anything LT already knows where we're headed. Yeah, a hundred credits says he already knows."

"Hell, I'd take that bet if I thought you had the damn cash," said Chuck Horner, his broad, fringe world grin robbing the comment of malice. Horner was what Arcturus's father would have disparagingly called "a good ol' boy," a thick-shouldered, broadfeatured hayseed from one of the outlying worlds in the Confederacy where they counted themselves lucky if they had electricity throughout the day.

On the surface, that's exactly what Charles "Chuck" Horner was, and Arcturus had been surprised to find a sharp mind and quick wit behind his "aw shucks" exterior.

"But you ain't got two cents to rub together," continued Chuck. "Leastways not after me and Chun Leung won everything but your panties the other night at poker."

"You got lucky," said Yancy.

"Lucky?" drawled Chuck. "My daddy and his daddy before him was playing army poker before you was a glint in your mama's eye. Taught me everything I know, son."

"Oh yeah?" countered Yancy. "Wanna try your luck again tonight?"

"What you got to bet with?" put in the aforementioned Chun Leung. "I already got your money and your chocolate rations for the next week. You don't got anything else the Big Dog wants to take off you."

"I'll clean Mayumi for a month," offered Yancy.

"Boy wants to gamble," de Santo said with a laugh.

"No way," said Chun Leung, hefting his Impaler rifle across his lap to stroke the gleaming, oiled barrel. Mayumi was the name Chun Leung had given to his rifle, his pride and joy. He kept the rifle obsessively oiled and cleaned, and where everyone else's gun was battered and scratched, Leung's weapon looked as though it had come straight from the factory.

"I'm the only one who handles my weapon," said Leung.

"Yeah, that's what the girls on Pridewater said too," quipped de Santo.

Leung flipped her off. "You want a piece of me?" he said. "I'll show you why they call me the Big Dog, little girl."

Arcturus listened to the banter, sensing the undercurrent of fear behind their easy back-and-forth. Thus far, the commanders of the 33rd hadn't seen fit to post them anywhere too dangerous, but even though his soldiers had only mess tent scuttlebutt to go on, they could sense this assignment would be different.

Only one member of the section didn't join in on the banter, and Arcturus knew that if there was a God somewhere in the heavens, he had a strange sense of humor.

Toby Mercurio, another graduate of Styrling Academy, sat across from Arcturus, his face downcast and his shoulders slumped. Having spent the last six months trying to brine Mercurio up to the standard of the rest of the section, Arcturus knew that the life of a soldier was not for his fellow alumnus.

Though Mercurio's parents had been wealthy enough to send him to an expensive school, the boy wasn't really Styrling Academy material. He'd scraped by academically, but it had been his above-average performance on the padball courts that had allowed him to graduate.

But above average didn't cut it in the professional circuit and without the safety net of any real qualifications, Toby had floundered in the real world. A series of meaningless, paper-shuffling jobs at one of his father's plants had ensued—all of which he'd spectacularly failed at—followed by a drunken afternoon that had seen him wake with a crushing hangover and a sheaf of signed enlistment papers.

In the eighteen months since Arcturus had joined up, he'd found that a soldier's life consisted of long stretches of boredom, followed by frantic periods of deployment and shouting. Which, in Dominion section's case, had been followed by yet more periods of boredom.

This assignment looked as though it might involve some action and, as surprising as it was to him, Arcturus realized he was looking forward to the prospect of combat. He'd trained to fight in combat armor and could fire a gauss rifle with a reasonable degree of accuracy, but it was his understanding of battlefield tactics, combined with his talent for inspiring those around him and making the impossible sound plausible, that had seen him rise to the level of lieutenant. Senior officers had their eye on him to ascend the promotions ladder, but before he could really embark on that climb, he needed some real combat under his belt.

Hence Dominion section's deployment to Sonyan.

"So come on, LT," said Chuck Horner. "Is the kid right? You know why we're out here?"

Arcturus felt the eyes of his section turn on him, their faces blurred slightly through the low-grade plasteel of their helmet visors.

"Yes, Charles," said Arcturus, knowing the others got a kick out of his using Chuck's full name. "I do know why we're out here. I'm an officer—it's my job to know."

"So what's the skinny?" asked Yancy, leaning forward. "Pirates? Rogue merc bands terrorizing helpless colonists and their pretty daughters?"

"Something like that," agreed Arcturus.

Whoops and hollers echoed over the comms at the prospect of actually putting their training into practice. Arcturus held a hand up to quiet his section and said. "We're dropping on a planet called Sonyan, specifically Camp Juno, where we're to rendezvous with other elements of the 33rd and facilitate the evacuation of personnel involved in illegal deep-core mining operations."

"We gonna get to kill anyone?" asked Chun Leung, patting Mayumi's muzzle.

"I hope not," said Arcturus, "but it's likely many of the people on Sonyan aren't going to want to leave their holdings."

"Well, damn, we got to show them the error of their ways," said Chuck Horner, highflying with Chun Leung. Yancy and Dia looked excited at the prospect, but, as usual. Toby Mercurio didn't join in.

"I bet I kill more than you, Dia," said Yancy.

"Sure you will," sneered de Santo. "Boy, you barely know which end of that gun to point at the enemy. We get into a fireflght, you make sure you stay in front of me, you hear?"

Lines of scrolling text flickered onto the HUD of Arcturus's armor and the red light of the compartment began flashing.

"Quiet down," he said, his voice easily cutting through the good-natured sparring. "We're coming in to land, so look sharp."

Before Sonyan, Arcturus had seen precisely three other planets. Growing up on Korhal, a lush, temperate world of balmy summers and mild winters, he had assumed that most other habitable worlds in the Confederacy would be much the same. His training on the colossal orbital shipyards of Dylar IV and his first tour on Pridewater had quickly disabused him of that notion, emphasizing the point that humans could live pretty much anywhere with enough perseverance.

But Sonyan was a world you'd have to have a serious reason just to visit, let alone live on.

As the assault ramp clanged onto the sandy hardpan of the planet, hot, biting winds howled inside the dropship, instantly blinding Arcturus and his soldiers.

As they disembarked, a group of engineers barged past them to get to the siege tank, and Arcturus fought the urge to shout at them. Instead he marched down the ramp and onto the gritty surface of another world.

The visor of Arcturus's helmet darkened in response to the sudden brightness as he took his first look at their new posting.

Camp Juno nestled in the rocky foothills of a broken series of valleys in the middle of a soaring range of reddish brown mountains. Dust devils blew down from the high peaks and the sky was the color of flaking rust. A jaundiced orb of a sun hung low above the tops of the mountains, casting long, thin shadows down the mountains and over the camp.

In the middle of the camp sat a modular command center, its pressed metal plates scoured and distressed by the constant assault of wind borne grit. The rotating dish, of a comsat swept the terrain and a number of depressingly identical buildings surrounded the command center, the standard pieces of kit you'd expect to find around any Confederate military establishment—barracks, mess halls, infirmary, and landing platform, as well as portal-framed hangars, supply depots, and training facilities.

Coils of wire looped between six missile turrets spaced at regular intervals around the camp's perimeter, their own dishes sweeping the skies for aerial threats. Squads of marines jogged through the camp and industrious SCVs effected repairs to damaged buildings.

Despite the number of people he saw, Arcturus sensed a relaxed, unhurried air to the camp. There was no urgency to the training, nor any sense of wariness in the posture of those marines that stood sentry over the camp. A few heads turned as he led his men from the belly of the dropship, but any interest in their arrival quickly passed.

"So what now, LT?" asked Yancy, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. "Where's our reception соmmittее?"

Arcturus was wondering the same thing, but didn't reply. It didn't become an officer to admit that he didn't know what was going on. They were supposed to have been met by the camp's head of security, but they were completely alone on the landing platform.

"Watch out on the ramp!" shouted one of the engineers inside the dropship, sparing Arcturus from thinking of an answer for Yancy.

No sooner was the warning given than the throaty rumble of the siege tank's engine bellowed. Jelling filthy plumes of blue oilsmoke? the tank lurched from the darkness and jerkily drove out onto the sand.

Arcturus watched as the tank rumbled away from the dropship with the engineers in tow.

"Damn, that thing's probably older than you, Chuck," said Dia de Santo.

"Dia, honey," drawled Chuck. "You call it old: I call it experienced."

"Well that is one experienced tank," said Yancy.

"Screw you, son," said Chuck with a knowing wink to de Santo. "Gimme the choice between a filly and a mare, I'll take the mare every time. She knows what she's doing and she'll make sure you do it right."

"We still talkin' about tanks?" asked Yancy.

"Ten-hut!" shouted Chun Leung, and the marines of Dominion section snapped to attention. Arcturus turned to see a fully armored marine marching toward them from the command center. He saw the insignia of a captain on the marine's shoulder, and a security detail of two soldiers marched at the officer's back.

Arcturus pulled himself lo attention, squinting through the glare and dust haze as he saw a familiarity to the marine's posture and walk. The captain halted in front of Arcturus and gave him a quick once-over.

"Lieutenant Arcturus Mengsk reporting for duty, sir," he said, saluting smartly. "Dominion section is ready for action, sir."

"Al ease, Mengsk," said the captain, and Arcturus smiled as he realized why his superior had seemed so familiar.

The glare visor on the captain's helmet snapped up and Arcturus found himself staring into the face of Captain Angelina Emillian, the very woman who'd planted the seed of his enlistment, so long ago it seemed, at Styrling Academy.

Arcturus relaxed, but only a fraction. Emillian might have been a familiar face, but she was still a captain and he a lieutenant. Even he had to respect the chain of command.

"Good to see you again, Mengsk," said Emillian. "So they made you lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," said Arcturus. "All the generals' jobs were taken."

Emillian smiled. "I see you've not lost that smart mouth of yours. Maybe your principal was right about you. They still letting him teach there?"

"No, sir," said Arcturus. "Last I heard he was doing sixty years in Bhar-el penal colony for embezzlement and fraud. I gather he wasn't a suitable candidate for resocialization."

Emillian caught the pride in his tone and said. "And I suppose you would've had nothing to do with that?"

"I couldn't possibly say," he replied, leaving Emillian in no doubt as to his complicity in Steegman's fall from grace.

"I thought so," said Emillian, jerking a thumb in the direction of his marines. "So what's their story?"

"Dominion section," said Arcturus. "Ready for action, sir. Just give us the word."

"Dominion section?" repeated Emillian. "Nice name. You choose it?"

"I did," said Arcturus with a nod. "I thought it sounded appropriately grand."

Emillian shook her head with a grin and walked along the line of marines, her stern gaze boring into each soldier and leaving no doubt that they were less than nothing to her.

"Okay, listen up, marines!" she shouted. "Welcome to Sonyan, the most miserable crap-hole this side of the core worlds. This ain't boot camp and it sure ain't paradise, so wherever you've been stationed before and thought was bad, forget it, this is worse. The chow sucks, the barracks have got more holes that an Impaler target, and you won't be leaving without at least one trip to the infirmary. Any questions?"

Most of the marines of Dominion section met her stare stoically, understanding that the best response to this kind of rhetorical question was silence.

Yancy Gray was, however, apparently oblivious to this piece of soldier's wisdom.

"Why will we be visiting the infirmary, sir?" he asked.

Captain Emillian rounded on him, the visor of her helmet barely an inch from her questioner. Arcturus winced, irritated that one of his marines had embarrassed him. "Did you say something, soldier?" she said.

"Uh... you asked if anyone had questions," replied Yancy. "I do. Have a question. I mean."

"That's enough, Gray," said Arcturus. "The captain will brief me and then I'll tell you what you need to know. For your sake, you'd better hope your trip to the infirmary is because you've been killed so you won't go asking any more stupid questions."

Emillian continued to stare hard at Yancy, who kept his gaze fixed on a point somewhere over her right shoulder. Eventually the captain turned away and stood before the section with her hands laced behind her back.

"In answer to Private Gray's question, you will most likely visit the infirmary because you will be getting shot at by disgruntled miners who have illegally begun deep-core operations on this rock, which just so happens to be a Confederate-owned piece of real estate."

Arcturus hadn't known that Sonyan was a Confederate world, that nugget of information not having been part of his briefing prior to their departure from Pridewater. Not that his briefing had said much more than "Go to Sonyan and await orders."

In any case, this far out on the rim, who claimed a world was largely a factor of who had the most men and the biggest guns. With the arrival of Dominion section and the siege tank, it appeared that honor now belonged to the Confederacy.

"Most of these miners have already been relocated," continued Emillian, beginning to pace as she spoke, "but there are a few stubborn holdouts, and it's going to be your job to flush them out. It's going to be bloody work, because these miners are dug in deeper than a Tyrador blood-shrike, but you'll have help. There are thirty marines and a handful of firebats here that'll be going in with you. And now we have a siege tank. But make no mistake, marines, you will be shot at and we will take casualties.”

"That last part, I can guarantee," finished Emillian. "Since you lucky bastards are going to hit Turanga Canyon at 06:00 tomorrow."

The sun was already bright and hot when Arcturus rose from his bunk at 05:00 and made his way to the mess hall to grab some breakfast and gulp down some A-grade military caffeine. Breakfast consisted of high-calorie gunk that tasted foul, but provided the energy a marine would need for combat operations.

As he sat contemplating the brownish sludge spooned onto his tray. Captain Emillian took the seat opposite him.

"Morning, Lieutenant," she said, nodding toward the food. "Not what you're used to, I bet."

"Not exactly," he agreed. "Though the refectory at Styrling Academy could give this place a run for its money."

"I can see why the Marine Corps would be appealing to you then."

They ate their breakfast In silence, and Arcturus took the opportunity to study Angelina Emillian in more detail. She was still pretty, but he noticed a scar that hadn't been there before, which traced a pale line above her ear before disappearing beneath her hair.

"Got it on Chau Sara," she said without looking up. "There was a prison riot in one of the penal colonies where they keep the worst of the worst—the mass murderers, rapists, and serial killers. We were on rotation there to pick up a batch for resocialization when it happened. I was in solitary evaluating an inmate by the name of Wyan Schaen when he got one of the guard's weapons and shot me in the face."

"Nasty," said Arcturus, appreciating the ridiculous understatement of his remark as he said it. But Emillian appeared not to notice.

"Yeah, it was, but I was lucky. The bullet ricocheted from the interior of my helmet and grazed me before exploding on the back.”

"So what did you do?"

"There was so much blood around me, the dumb-ass thought I was dead," said Emillian. “I guess I was out for a few seconds, but once I came to, I saw he was standing at the bars with his back to me. So I got up and broke his neck, and then got the hell out of there."

"I'm impressed," said Arcturus, genuinely meaning it.

"It's nothing," she said. "Anyway, we got our recruits and I got a new scar I could use to impress greenhorn lieutenants. So tell me about your section, Mengsk. Are they any good?"

Arcturus looked down the length of the table, where the marines of Dominion section sat chatting with the marines who were going to be flying up to Turanga Canyon with them.

"Yes," he said. "Until this mission came up, they were looking forward to going on leave. We all were, but they're good soldiers. Some are better than others, but they'll follow orders and they'll fight hard."

"Good enough," said Emillian.

Arcturus had seen the telltale scars of neural resocialization on the marines his men were talking to and said. "Tell me something, Captain. You have thirty marines here already, all resoced to follow orders without question."

"Yeah? So?"

"So why do you need us?"

Emillian answered between mouthfuls of scrambled egg. "You ever fought alongside a resoced marine?"

"No."

"You wouldn't ask that question if you had," said Emillian. "Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly good soldiers and they'll do anything you order them to, but they don't have initiative and don't react too well to changing battlefield situations. Give 'em an order that's easy to follow and there's no problem, but the minute things start to get a bit screwy, well, they get a bit lost. I keep asking for marines that aren't brain-panned, but they keep sending me more of 'em.”

"And you think six of us can make a difference?"

"Six of you and a siege tank, let's not forget."

"Of course," said Arcturus. "These miners, they must be a tough bunch."

"What makes you say that?"

"You clearly don't think they'll surrender as soon as they see us. Am I wrong?"

"No, you’re not wrong."

"I didn't think so," said Arcturus. "Why won't they surrender?"

"Because they didn't the last time we came for them. They fought back with goliath walkers, antiaircraft missiles, and a whole lot of guns. Then again, we didn't have a siege lank last time. Or Dominion section," she added with a smile.

The siege tank had left the previous evening and was to rendezvous with them at the mouth of Turanga Canyon, where it would provide artillery support as the marines moved up toward the miners' base.

"Do you remember when we spoke back at Styrling Academy?" asked Arcturus.

"Sure," said Emillian. "Why do you ask?"

"You said barely fifty percent of marines ever actually see combat. Seems like that might have been a slight...exaggeration."

"Not at all," replied Emillian. "About fifty percent of recruits to the marines either wash out of boot camp, are killed in training accidents, get their brains fried by the resoc, or otherwise end up invalided to desk jobs."

"So basically if you survive boot camp you're almost guaranteed to see combat?"

"Pretty much," agreed Emillian, with a wry twitch of her eyebrows.

"Doesn't sound quite as appealing when you put it like that."

"Hence the shift of emphasis," said Emillian, standing and carrying her breakfast tray to the racks. Arcturus followed her and slid his tray in below Emillian's.

"I can see that. Now."

Emillian turned, and from the steel in her eyes Arcturus could see that the informality of breakfast was over.

"Right. Time to get busy, Lieutenant. Get your men together and be on the launchpad in ten minutes. We dust off at 05:30, so don't be late or I'll court-martial your ass. Now move it!"

Arcturus moved it.

Arcturus sat with his gauss rifle against his shoulder and his body braced against the craggy rock protecting him from the stream of bullets that sawed down from above. The sun blazed high above them, a sour lemon yellow orb that looked close enough to reach up and touch. His breath came in ragged spurts and he could taste blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten his tongue in the crash.

The members of Dominion section huddled in the rocks with him, each one looking the worse for wear, but still alive. Which Arcturus realized was a bloody miracle, remembering the gut-wrenching terror he'd felt as the explosion had torn a monstrous hole in the side of the dropship.

He could recall almost nothing of what followed, save hurricane-force winds roaring through the troop compartment, billowing flames, and the awful sound of battle-hardened marines screaming in agony.

Next thing he remembered, he was lying in a tangle of twisted metal, surrounded by flames and looking up at a pillar of oily black smoke etched on the sky. Hands had grabbed him under his arms and dragged him from the wreckage, and as he'd been propped up against a rock, he saw it had been Chuck Horner who'd rescued him.

"What happened?" he managed.

"Missile," said Horner. "They got a turret set up at the mouth of the valley. Pilot didn't see it and we got a heat-seeker right up our tailpipe. Now at least half the marines are dead, and the damn siege tank ain't here yet neither."

"Emillian?" asked Arcturus. "Where's the captain?"

"Captain's out of the fight, sir," said Yancy Gray, across the gully from Arcturus. "I think her back's broken."

Private Gray's words had focused Arcturus's thoughts, and he pulled himself to his feet using a nearby rock for support. He had to get everyone together and figure out what to do next. Looking over at Emillian's supine form, Arcturus saw that Yancy was dead right: Emillian wasn't going to be joining this fight.

Her armor would keep her alive for a while, but her legs and spine were bent into shapes they weren't designed to make, and Arcturus knew she wouldn't last long if they didn't get her to a medical station.

Twenty meters back down the valley, the gutted hulk of the dropship lay scattered in a mangled pile of fire-blackened steel. The pilot had tried his best to soften their landing, but there was only so much you could do with your engines taken out by an explosion and the nearest piece of flat ground a hundred kilometers away. Thick, billowing clouds of smoke belched from the wrecked craft and the fire crackled and popped as it devoured ammo packs and stim dispensers.

Arcturus had done a quick head count, and found that eleven of the marines who'd accompanied them on the dropship were dead and another eight were too badly injured to fight. Three of the firebats were also dead, immolated by their own weapons when they'd cooked off In the fire of the crash.

That left eleven of Emillian's resoced marines and two firebats to fight alongside Dominion section. No sooner had Arcturus got everyone together than a burst of gunfire ripped down from the rocks above.

"Cover!" he shouted, though the order was unnecessary. High-pitched pings of metal on rock echoed deafeningly, like an endless box of nails being emptied onto hard stone from a great height.

Breathing heavily, Arcturus risked a glance mil of cover when the fire slackened fractionally, and saw a whole lot of shooters on the rocks above. He guessed about twenty men in body armor, helmets, and tough-wearing outdoor gear.

Certainly not soldiers, but more likely mercenaries or a pirate band hired by the miners.

Arcturus stuck his rifle around the rock and pulled the trigger, not really aiming, but just wanting to return fire. The armor easily absorbed the recoil, and though his shots went well wide, he fell better for shooting back.

Dominion section hugged the rocks, looking up with expressions ranging from the beginnings of panic to relish. More spikes sprayed down at them and Arcturus watched as a concentrated volley tore up one of the injured marines.

The man appeared to jerk as though being electrocuted. His armor was proof against most small-arms fire, but a whole lot of Impaler rifles firing in sync had torn through the weakened portions of his plate.

Whomever these miners had hired to defend them knew their trade.

More shots ricocheted down from above, pinning them in the rocks below their objective, and Arcturus saw they had only two options. They could either retreat, skulking back to the valley mouth, or continue with their mission into the teeth of the gunfire.

Retreat was not an option that appealed to Arcturus, not when so many men were dead, but neither did he want to rush to a glorious death in the face of an unknown number of gunmen.

From his earlier glance, he'd seen that the bulk of the men ahead were lurking behind jagged outcrops of rock in a narrow defile amid a tangle of wiry brush. Above them, the rocks were a vivid white, as though bleached by the sun.

As one group fired, another reloaded. Between them, they kept a near-constant stream of Impaler spikes rattling and chiming from the rocks around Dominion section.

In the quick glance he'd had, Arcturus saw that the valley narrowed as it neared the gunmen. The ground before their attackers was a sharply inclined, open killing ground that would be close to suicide to charge up, but the rocky walls to either side of where the marines were pinned could be climbed with only a little effort. About four meters above, the ground appeared to become flatter, rocky, and strewn with stunted trees and scattered piles of boulders.

Ideal cover from which to flank their attackers.

Arcturus turned and opened a link to the firebats.

The two surviving firebats were hunched in cover, their hulking suits of crimson armor heavily dented and scarred from the crash, but their Perdition flamethrowers appeared to be in full working order.

"This is Lieutenant Mengsk," he said. "Identify yourselves."

"Private Eugene Malik," came the first reply.

"Private Harper Utley," said the second firebat.

"Malik, Utley. I'm going to need you two to go straight up the middle and give me a screen of fire. When I give the word, head toward the rocks the shooters are using as cover and put a wall of fire between them and us. You understand?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" they replied in unison, and hissing blue cones of heal ignited from the weapon systems fixed to their gauntlets.

Satisfied the firebats understood their task, Arcturus then spoke to the resoced marines who had survived the crash and were still fit to fight. He pointed to the nearest marines and said. "You two stay with the wounded. The rest of you, I want you supporting Malik and Utley. I want a stream of Impalers keeping those bastards' heads down. Got that?"

Nodding heads and snapped salutes assured him they understood, and Arcturus returned his attention to his own soldiers as a ricocheting Impaler spike thudded into his shoulder guard.

"What's the plan, LT?" shouted Dia de Santo as Arcturus brushed the spike from his armor as though it were a piece of lint on his best suit.

"We're going to take out those gunmen and push on," said Arcturus.

"Sir, that's crazy!" cried Chuck Horner. "We ain't got a damn clue how many more of them are walling for us up there!"

Arcturus shook his head, jabbing his fist at the marines of Dominion section. "We're going and that's an order. When the firebats and what's left of Emillian's marines make their move, I want Horner, Mercurio and Yancy up and over the rocks on the right. The rest of you with me on the left."

He could see the fear and doubt on their faces, and said. "Listen, soldiers! There's probably more of them moving around our flank already to cut us off."

Given the terrain and the fact that they were pinned down quite neatly here, that probably wasn't true but it didn't hurt to put the fear of it into thorn.

"Either we go forward and take this fight to them or we get cut to pieces like rookie,” shouted Arcturus. "We're Dominion section and we kill anyone who gets in our way."

Chun Leung hefted Mayumi and slammed in a fresh clip.

“Now you re talkin' my language!' he said.