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meters away.
We're here. The cost had been high. All of his headquarters and special
guards, dead or left behind to block that hard-nosed Spartan bastard who
wouldn't parley. Can't blame him, but it was worth a try.
"Drill A, Drill A!" Niles gasped, over the command push. Maximum gain. "DRILL
A!" His escort stopped, and he pulled open the throat of his own armor to seal
the ring around his neck; the Helot senior commanders had offworld helmets
with all the trimmings, for obvious reasons.
Stasis dissolved into action; nobody had explained why Drill A was practiced
so often, but the movements were automatic. Helmet off. Pull the plastic bag
out of its case on the belt, drag it over the head, yank the tab.
Disconcerting how it plastered itself to the face and neck, but the areas that
touched mouth and nose turned permeable instantly; permeable to air molecules,
and nothing else. Helmet on . . .
even the men probing with fire at the Royalist line ahead stopped the
necessary few seconds. Or most did, from the way the sound dropped off for a
few seconds, and anybody who didn't . . .
Rockets burst overhead; there were cries of alarm from the Helot columns, but
no rain of bomblets followed.
. . . anybody who didn't, deserved what was about to happen to them.
"Kolnikov!" he snapped, as they came to the head of the column. "Hit them, hit
them now."
It was quiet ahead. All quiet. The gas must have acted more quickly than he
thought. The Helots were already surging forward through the woods; their
screams no less chilling for being muffled through their gas filters. Niles
drove forward himself, the pain in his side was distant, he would pay for it
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later, no time to think of that. Past the enemy line, past gunners sprawled
shot or bayonetted around their machine gun, helmets off and gas filters in
their hands. Firing, screaming; the company behind him deploying and charging
uphill, at right angles to the Royalist blockforce's position, rolling it up
from the downslope flank, throwing them back toward the top of the ridge.
Grenades crumped and rifles chattered; he could see figures darting through
the woods. Firing, falling;
not all the enemy were down, the RSI's training was recent and the response to
the gas alert quick . . .
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...Falkenberg%203%20-%20Go%
20Tell%20the%20Spartans.txt (138 of 159)20-2-2006 23:17:52
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...lle%20-%20%
20Falkenberg%203%20-%20Go%20Tell%20the%20Spartans.txt but it was enough. They
were getting past the enemy. Losing troops, but they were getting past, moving
faster now. . . .
"Keep moving, Kolnikov!" he said, turning from the fight and loping up to one
of the sleds. The men pulling it were sprinting now, their breath harsh and
rasping through the filters, faces red and contorted into gorgon-shapes. One
stumbled and went down as a bullet punched into his side. His comrades ripped
him free almost without breaking stride, and Niles snatched up the rope and
put it over his shoulder.
"We're through, everyone move, this is it, do it, lads, go, go, go."
Ahead was the knoll where the weakest of the Brotherhood forces waited; the
Eighteenth, the one that had been dropping off men for the firebases. Men and
weapons . . .
"Go, go, go!" The sky screamed as the follow-on bombardment launched. He had
lost a third of his frames to the Royalist counterbattery fire, but there were
enough for these two targets.
The knoll lit with a surf-wall of flame.
* * *
"They're past us, Colonel," McLaren said. "I thank you for the warning. I've
lost aye more o' my laddies than I like, but 'tis no what would hae happened
if we hadna known."
"Can you see the enemy?"
"Aye, they're past and running up toward the Eighteenth's encampment."
"Excellent. Regroup and get ready to go kill them." Owensford switched
channels. "Stand by to Flash
Blue Peter Four," he said quietly.
"Standing by."
"Let me know when they go to ground, McLaren," Owensford said.
"Aye, that I will, Colonel. That I will, the murtherin' bastards."
"Warning."
"Go ahead, Guns."
"Colonel, incoming, our position and the Eighteenth's, all their batteries on
those targets. Thirty seconds to impact." A second's pause. "Second launch. I
should have better counterbattery after this, but we're going to be buttoned
up in our holes until they run out of rockets." The mortar crews had no
overhead protection, and the submunitions would slaughter them if they stood
to their weapons.
"Right. Button up and stay buttoned. Andy, get me the Eighteenth."
"Eighteenth Brotherhood, Wilson."
"Wilson, they'll be battering hell out of your old position. Get down and stay
down. When the bombardment's over, continue your withdrawal."
"Sir, we'd like to go after them."
"Negative. Your mission is to stay intact and stay alive. Just by existing you
keep the bastards in the sack they put themselves in. They thought they'd
fight through you. They don't know you're still organized and on their flank."
"Aye, aye, sir."
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"Good man. Hang in there."
WhumpWhumpWhumpWhump the bursting charges of the rockets went on longer this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]