Insurrection (The Kurgan War Book 6) Page 5

  “Ten to one that was a rebel soldier nervously shooting at the first thing he saw,” said Cole, between breaths.

  “At least he was a bad shot,” offered Sheridan.

  “Yeah, there is that.” Cole looked around the room. “Which way now, boss?”

  Sheridan checked the map on his watch. “That way,” he said, pointing at a door in the back of the shop.

  “You sure?”

  “Not this again.” Sheridan stepped to one side. “Do you want to lead?”

  Cole shook his head. “No way, you’re the officer. If we’re going to trigger a booby-trap, I’d rather it was you than me setting it off.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re all heart?”

  Chapter 9

  Tarina and Wendy satin the cockpit of the shuttlecraft. The original occupants had been evicted and threatened with bodily harm if they ever came back for their seats.

  “Do you have the capital building inputted into the ship’s navigational computer?” asked Tarina.

  “I sure do,” replied Wendy. “Once we get the word to move, we can be there in less than five minutes.”

  They were waiting in a field behind the Kurgan division’s second echelon forces. Through the cockpit glass, they could see a wall of fire engulfing the city.

  “You know, I don’t know what bothers me more,” said Tarina. “The fact that some of the people we have gotten to know fairly well over the past few months are somewhere in that city facing certain death. Or the fact that we’re sitting here being guarded by the very people we’ve been fighting the past couple of years.”

  “War can be a funny thing,” said Colonel Wright from the pilot’s chair. “On the battlefield, in one instant you’re trying to kill your enemy, the next, you’re trying to save their lives. I try not to think about it too much. That way it doesn’t aggravate my stomach.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to forgive them for what they did during the war,” said Wendy.

  “Captain Sullivan, you don’t need to. They’ll deal with their sins in their own good time. You, however, need to be able to look yourself in the mirror and live with what you’ve done.”

  Wendy sat back in her chair and let out a sigh. “I never thought about it like that.”

  “The world as you know it is about to drastically change, and you may not like it. I think you two ladies will find peacetime soldiering a bit too boring after what you have lived through. Trust me, as soon as the shooting stops, the bureaucrats, bootlickers, and slackers will reemerge from their hiding spots and almost overnight resume control of the armed forces. People of talent who rose to prominence during the war will be quietly pushed aside in favor of the officer who follows the rules and doesn’t rock the boat.”

  “Surely, it can’t be all that bad,” said Tarina. “You’re exaggerating a bit, aren’t you, Colonel?”

  “Not at all. Trust me, it will only get worse. After the last war, no one back home wanted to continue to pay higher personal taxes for an enlarged military. I have no doubt that history will repeat itself. Ships, equipment, manpower, will all be slashed by the penny pinchers until we’re left with roughly the same-sized force we had when the war began.”

  “Colonel, you make it sound like we’ve learned nothing from this war about being prepared to fight.”

  “Oh, we learned a lot. That’s never the issue. The problem is that a year from now, no one will remember a thing. Anyone who speaks out about the lack of military preparedness will be labeled a fear monger or not in touch with the realities of today’s armed forces.”

  “I guess I’ll have to make myself a resume and see if the long-haul cargo ships are hiring,” joked Wendy.

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, the bloody war isn’t over yet,” said Tarina. “Our friends are trapped in that city and come hell or high water, we’re going to get them out alive.”

  Wright grinned. “That’s the fighting spirit I’ve come to expect. Now let’s get this thing ready to move the split second after we receive their call.”

  Tarina, sitting in the co-pilot’s chair, applied power to the engines and brought the shuttlecraft up off the ground. Out of the window she could see Kurgan soldiers frantically waving at them to bring the craft back down. Tarina waved at the Kurgans and said, “Screw you,” under her breath.

  Chapter 10

  The cacophony of battle echoed down the narrow streets. The whoosh of rocket launchers and the sharp crack of small-arms fire seemed to come from every direction. Several Kurgan drones lay on the ground smoldering.

  Michael Sheridan poked his head around the corner of a building and took a quick look around. He swore when he spotted a helicraft hovering over the street. A couple of squads of Chosen soldiers dropped down on ropes and rushed to take up a position in an abandoned building.

  “Looks like the army is deploying teams of soldiers into the city to disrupt the rebels’ defense,” said Sheridan to Cole.

  “Can we go around them?” asked Cole.

  “Yeah, but I think we’d have to backtrack, and that would add time.”

  “Screw that. There has to be an alternative way to the building. What about your map of the sewers?”

  “You heard Komada, he ordered the sewers to be mined.”

  “I don’t believe a word that comes out of that man’s mouth. I say we use them to get to where we’re going.”

  A shot rang out. With a loud crack, a bullet struck the wall next to Sheridan’s head. He instinctively pulled his head back and pointed at a building behind them. They sprinted inside and only stopped when they reached in the shop’s basement.

  “That was close,” said Cole. “Did you see who was shooting at you?”

  “No, but I’m sure it was someone from that Chosen squad.”

  “The streets are fire-free zones now.”

  Sheridan nodded. “Look for a sewer cover.”

  “No need.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m standing on it,” said Cole as he stepped aside to let Sheridan see the manhole cover.

  “Okay, smart ass, let’s get it off so we can get below ground.”

  Cole grabbed a metal bar from a shelf, placed it under the lip of the cover, and pulled up. The lid made a screeching sound as it was hauled away from the entrance to the sewer.

  “Oh God, what a horrid stench,” groused Cole, waving a hand in front of his nose.

  Sheridan shone his light into the opening. “There’s a ladder which leads down into the sewer.”

  “Lead on, sir. You’re the one with the map.”

  The two Marines climbed down into the sewer and turned on the lights affixed underneath the forestock of their rifles. Sheridan oriented his map on his watch to his surroundings and pointed down the fetid-smelling tunnel. “This way.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Cole. “How far is it to the capital building from here?”

  “Four more blocks.”

  “Bloody hell. I thought we were closer than that. Oh well, no point bitching.”

  “That’s a first.” Sheridan stepped off and started to walk through the knee-high filth.

  “Do you suppose they have critters in the sewers like they do in the big cities back home?” said Cole, looking at the black ooze swirling around his legs.

  “That’s an urban myth. I’ve never seen one credible report of anyone being attacked by giant beasts while working in the sewers.”

  “Yeah, well, I heard a story from a guy who once worked for the sanitation department in New Glasgow, and he said they once found the half-eaten remains of one of their men after he had been reported missing for three days.”

  Sheridan glanced over his shoulder. “And you believed him?”

  “Sure, why not? He had no reason to lie to me.”

  “Was this during your earlier, more incorrigible years in the Marine Corps?”

  “It may have been, but I stand by my original question. Do you think the
y have nasty man-eating critters down here?”

  All of a sudden, Sheridan froze.

  Cole brought his rifle up to his shoulder and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Look,” whispered back Sheridan.

  Cole moved to one side and looked in front of Sheridan. His stomach dropped when he saw the corpse of a rebel soldier floating face up in the muck. The body looked fresh. His throat looked as if it had been torn from his neck.

  “Damn, we’re not alone down here,” said Sheridan.

  “Sir, we can’t go back.”

  “I know; we’ll just have to keep moving forward and hope we don’t run into the man or thing that did that.”

  With their weapons held tight into their shoulders, the two Marines carried on through the maze of tunnels until they were less than a block away from the capital building.

  Sheridan stopped in his tracks and raised a hand.

  “What’s up?” asked Cole.

  “That,” said his friend, pointing at the spider’s web of wires and explosives spread across the sewer.

  “I guess Komada wasn’t completely lying,” said Cole. “They must have wired up some of the approaches to the strongpoints to protect them. I bet our dead friend was one of the rebels’ sappers who had been sent into the sewers to double-check the explosives when he was attacked and killed.”

  Sheridan looked at the map on his watch. “If we go back about fifty meters, there’s a way up into a building directly across from the capital building.”

  Cole turned around and shone his light back the way they came. For a split second, he thought he saw someone or something moving in the shadows. “Hey, Major, I think we are being followed.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I thought I saw something back here, that’s why.”

  “It’s just your mind playing tricks on you. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Cole walked back to the ladder leading up and stopped. He looked at Sheridan and said, “You first. If there’s something down here, I’m a better shot than you.”

  Sheridan slung his weapon over his back and started to climb the slime-covered ladder when something covered in muck leaped out of the shadows, knocked Cole’s rifle aside, and tried to pull him down into water.

  Cole saw the eyes of his attacker and knew he was facing a deranged man and not an animal. He reached over with his right hand and tried to pull his assailant off of him. His hands slid off the slime-covered skin. The next thing he knew, the madman bared his jagged teeth and tried biting at the flesh on Cole’s face. The assailant’s breath stank of rotting flesh.

  “Hold on,” yelled Sheridan as he dropped down from the ladder, drew his knife, and thrust it deep into the man’s back.

  The attacker moaned in pain and dropped to his knees.

  Sheridan pulled his blade free, thrust it under the assailant’s armpit, and twisted it, cutting into the dying man’s heart. With a long exhale of breath, the man slid down into the muck and lay there staring up at the two Marines. Sheridan retrieved his knife and wiped the blade clean on his shirt before putting it back in its sheath.

  Cole nudged the man with his foot. He had long hair, a scraggly beard, and was completely naked. “Jesus, he looks like he’s been down here for years.”

  “Decades, maybe,” said Sheridan.

  “I wonder what drove him to live down here.”

  Sheridan started to climb the ladder again. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know right now.”

  “I told you there were things in the sewer that could kill you.”

  Sheridan shook his head. “You meant critters, not madmen.”

  Just before Cole started to climb up, he said, “The only thing bothering me now is, what did he eat down here for all those years?”

  “For God’s sake, Alan, let it go and get up here.”

  As soon as they were both in the basement of the building, they placed the manhole cover back in place and piled as much heavy stuff as they could find over the top of it.

  Sheridan tossed his friend a rag to wipe the filth from his face and clothes. “Okay, we’re real close to the capital building. At the top of the stairs we need to take the first right. We should come out across from the building.”

  “Well, there’s no point wasting any more time down here,” said Cole, wiping off the mud from his rifle. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 11

  “Okay, the capital building is right across that piece of open ground,” said Sheridan over his shoulder to Cole.

  “Great,” said Cole after taking a quick peek. “A vehicle-free zone looks good on paper when you’re building a city, but not so much when you’re forced to fight in it. A couple of burning hulks to use for cover would have been nice right about now.”

  “There’s a small orchard just off to our left. We could use that for cover.”

  “The trees are spread too far apart for my liking, but it’s all we’ve got, so I say we go for it.”

  Sheridan looked at his friend. “Do you have any thermal smoke grenades in your pockets?”

  “Yeah, I might have one or two,” replied Cole, rummaging through the pockets of his jacket. “Found one.”

  “Okay, toss it in the open space between us and the orchard. We’ll use it to cover our movement.”

  Cole nodded and activated the baseball-sized grenade. He hauled back his right arm and threw the device out into the open. It landed next to a knocked-over trash bin and rolled to a halt next to a tree. It began to spew a thick, gray cloud of heated smoke capable of blinding any thermal sight for about thirty seconds.

  “Now!” said Sheridan, sprinting toward the billowing cloud of smoke. Cole ran right beside him. Rifle fire erupted from the second floor of the capital building. The shots fired in haste flew wide. With his heart beating wildly, Sheridan kept running until they reached the edge of the orchard and the smoke screen. Like a baseball player trying to steal a base, he dropped down and slid under the cover of the trees.

  Cole dove forward and rolled over on his shoulder, coming to a halt right next to Sheridan. Ferns and plants spread throughout the orchard gave them a small bit of added cover. He lifted his head slightly and looked through his rifle’s sight. “I hate to say it, but we’re still a good thirty meters from the building, and the ground is completely open from here to there,” explained Cole. “The rebels may be lousy shots, but we’ll never make it more than a couple of meters before someone drops us.”

  “Do you have another smoke grenade?” asked Sheridan.

  “Nope. One is all I had. Sorry.”

  “We need a distraction.”

  As if hearing Sheridan’s pleas for help, a lone Kurgan Army heavy tank drove down the street and turned its turret toward the capital building. The air crackled as the tank activated its rail gun. With a loud bang, the tank fired. In the blink of an eye, a hole was blasted in the side of the building. Dust and debris flew everywhere. From above, several anti-tank missiles flew at the armored vehicle. Most bounced off the tank’s thick armor. One, however, missed the turret and struck the vehicle’s engine compartment, destroying it.

  From their vantage point Sheridan and Cole watched as a hatch opened under the belly of the tank, and the crew crawled out. They had almost made it to safety when another volley of missiles struck the tank. With an ear-shattering blast, the tank exploded. Flames engulfed the metal beast, killing the men trapped beneath it.

  Sheridan steeled himself to move when he felt a hand on his arm.

  “Wait!” cautioned Cole. “Look up.”

  Sheridan turned his head slightly and froze. Just above the top of trees hovered four fully armed UAVs. They had been watching and marking all of the rebel missile launchers with their laser designators. The sound of sixteen rockets packed with high explosives flying off their railings drowned out everything else. In an instant, the front of the building seemed to vanish in an orange and red ball of fire.

  “Now,” said Cole, hau
ling his friend to his feet with him.

  With one hand raised above their heads to protect them from being hit by falling debris, the two Marines covered the thirty meters in record time. They entered the structure through a smashed glass door and didn’t stop running until they reached an overturned desk and took cover behind it.

  “Thank God for those poor fools with the anti-tank launchers,” said Cole. “If the drones hadn’t expended all of their missiles on them, we’d still be trapped out in the open.”

  Sheridan nodded. He got up on one knee and looked around the room. Destroyed office furniture and smashed computers covered the floor. There were a couple of dead insurgents lying next to a flipped over chain gun. Aside from the two bodies, they were alone. “Where is everyone?”

  “I never had the chance to check this place out, but I’m willing to bet that Staff Sergeant Trang sighted most of the rebels on the floors above us,” responded Cole. “We both know from experience that armored vehicles are vulnerable when being fired on from above.”

  “Okay, we’re on the ground floor, so it’s only twenty more to go until we reach the roof.”

  “Now there’s a cheery thought. I guess taking the elevator is not in the cards?”

  Sheridan smiled. “Komada had them all deactivated yesterday, so it’s the stairs or nothing.”

  Cole placed a hand on Sheridan’s shoulder. “Michael, before we kick off, I don’t want you to think of any of the insurgents we’re about to run into as friends. I don’t doubt that Komada has told his people to keep an eye out for us. He wants us to die here as well. Our deaths will undoubtedly be used in his propaganda campaign to whip up public support back home. You know he’d love it if Earth openly supported his side in the rebellion. Our forces made a huge strategic error when they decided to use Komada and his followers to help us end this war.”

  “I bet you’d like to tell me ‘I told you so.’”

  Cole shook his head. “No, not right now. I’ll do that once we’re safe and sound on our side of the border. It’s time to switch weapons. Anyone we bump into will be at close range.”