There was a loud whoosh, followed by a roar, as the armor-piercing round raced up the street. It scored a direct hit on the Kel-Morian who was at the center of the three-man formation. The result was a loud boom followed by a reedy cheer, as pieces of the ripper flew in every direction.
But as Ward worked to reload his single shot launcher, the enemy grunts were closing with the marines, firing as they came. Raynor saw two men fall as Harnack readied his weapon.
“Eat this!” Harnack proclaimed as he pointed the igniter over the barrier and pulled the trigger. A gout of fire shot up the street, wrapped a ripper in a fiery embrace, and set him to dancing inside a cocoon of orange-red flames.
Zander dropped a series of grenades into the conflagration, and the resulting explosion sent the Kel-Morian’s helmet and head shooting straight up, trailing fire as they went. Then there was a flash of light as the suit came apart—and shrapnel flew in every direction.
That was spectacular stuff, but not as amazing as what occurred next, when Tychus jumped the barrier and charged the remaining grunt with his weapon blazing! As the two of them collided, Tychus bowled the ripper over and landed on the Kel-Morian’s chest. It shouldn’t have been possible, but Tychus was not only bigger than most men, but amped on adrenaline as well. He brought his rifle butt down on the other soldier’s visor, swore when it didn’t shatter, and hit it again and again.
The Kel-Morian was trying to buck Tychus off, but the marine was already in the process of bringing the rifle butt down for a sixth time. As solid metal smashed into the face beyond the visor—a sliver of bone was forced up into Foreman Oleg Benson’s brain.
Raynor, who had been rushing to help, skidded to a halt. “Damn! Remind me not to piss you off!”
“Too late for that,” Tychus responded, as he got up off the corpse. “But at least you and your girlfriends know how to fight… . That’s more than I expected. Come on! Let’s head for the armory!”
Without helmets or comm units, the squad had no way to communicate with the command structure as they ran up the street. Not that it made much difference, because while there were pockets of organized resistance, chaos ruled.
Nowhere was that more evident than in the vicinity of the armory, as the squad crossed a parking lot littered with a dozen dead marines and began to close in on a brightly lit loading bay. One truck was already halfway down the street and another was in the process of pulling away. That left two more in the final stages of loading. A guard hut offered momentary cover for the group. Kydd was the last one in. He broke out a window, placed his weapon on the sill, and began to scan.
“Damn it!” Raynor exclaimed, as two rippers opened fire from the shadows. “What’s going on here?”
“They’re stealing stuff, that’s what’s going on,” Tychus replied knowingly, as spikes buried themselves in the plascrete and the noncom jerked Raynor back out of the line of fire. “Which is real interesting because you’d expect the KMs to blow the place up!”
Raynor’s mind was racing. “That’s right! How long since the first announcement? Fifteen minutes max? They must’ve been loading at least some of those trucks before the attack began!”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Tychus replied in mock amazement, “you aren’t as stupid as you look! So General, let’s kill those fekkin’ rippers and find out where those trucks are going.”
It was a good idea, but before the squad could act on it, all of Fort Howe’s surviving turrets began to fire missiles up into the inky black sky as three Kel-Morian transports loaded with troops came in for a landing. As some of the missiles struck their targets, orange-red blossoms appeared and Kel-Morian transports died. There was a prolonged clatter as debris fell all around.
“There’s act two,” Tychus observed, as an explosion lit his upturned face. “An airborne assault intended to take and hold the base.”
“Why steal arms if you plan to capture them?” Raynor demanded.
“For the money,” Tychus growled. “Some rotten bastard knew the KMs were coming—and knew he could blame the loss on them once the battle was over. Come on… . We have work to do.”
The other four members of the squad had engaged the grunts by then, and as the two men rounded the east side of the guard hut, heavy fire was sleeting back and forth. Then Tychus saw one of the enemy soldiers jerk as if slapped in the face. The Kel-Morian fell over backward as a second .50 caliber slug smashed through his protective visor, which was made of cheap, low-grade plasteel. “That’s some nice shooting,” Tychus observed loudly as he fired a short burst. “Who’s the kid with the long gun, anyway?”
“That depends on who you ask,” Raynor replied, as one of Ward’s rockets struck the second grunt and blew the man in half. “But the kid answers to ‘Kydd.’”
“We’re taking fire from the south!” Harnack shouted, as he began to back toward the loading dock. A long tongue of fire swept the area where the dead marines lay—cremating both them and half a dozen Kel-Morian troops.
Then, as Harnack continued to pan the igniter back and forth, he accidentally swept it across the back end of a fuel truck. Ward shouted, “Watch out!” but it was too late, as the tanker exploded. There was a throaty BOOM as a chunk of flying metal cut two enemy soldiers in half, a column of flames shot straight up into the air, and a wave of fiery fuel flowed out to lap around Kel-Morian ankles.
To conserve on weight, the KMs weren’t wearing hardskins, and they began to scream as they ran in circles. Zander put them out of their misery with a series of well-placed grenades as Harnack stared in wonder. “Did I do that? Holy crap, I’m in love.”
Meanwhile, as Kydd and Ward turned to help their buddies defend against the new threat, Tychus was pulling a door open and jerking the driver out of a truck. He was a civilian, and a terrified one at that, which offered support to the theory that somebody was not only stealing weapons but colluding with the enemy to do so!
Raynor had taken possession of the other truck by then even as the firefight grew more intense. So he slid behind the controls and sounded the air horn, in hopes that the rest of the squad would take notice. They did, and Kydd and Zander rushed to board Raynor’s vehicle, while Harnack and Ward piled into the one that Tychus was driving.
Then, as spikes shattered the windscreen and perforated the front hood, Raynor pulled away. He had a sick feeling that they weren’t going to make it. But then, suddenly, all the firing stopped. It seemed choreographed, as if someone wanted the trucks to escape. Someone who didn’t know they had been taken over.
Raynor thought it best to find a safe place to park it before rejoining the battle, but Tychus clearly had other ideas as he passed on the left, and his voice sounded over the truck’s radio. “This is Echo-Six to base command… . The enemy looted the armory and my squad and I are giving chase. Over.”
That was a partial truth at best, but Raynor never got a chance to complain, as a second voice was heard. “This is Hotel-One to Echo-Six… . Break it off… . I repeat, break it off and report to rally point seven. That’s an order. Over.”
Then came Tychus’s reply. “You’re breaking up, Hotel-One. Repeat, breaking up. Will try again in five. Over.”
At that point Raynor realized that he and his fellow squad members had been hijacked by their new sergeant and were being drawn into a dangerous combination of criminal activity and dereliction of duty. That went against everything he had been taught to believe in, and that made him feel guilty, not to mention scared.
On the other hand, there was no question about what he had seen with his own eyes. Confederate marines had been loading the trucks before the attack started. So it appeared as though at least some of the good guys weren’t all that good. And how could they get away with something like that unless somebody higher up was in on it? Truth was, it was hard to tell what was right and wrong anymore.