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Saurons was his fate, not his fault.
Bloody hell, I am getting too old for breaking in new officers!
Hamilton's face was regaining its normal holo-star tan as he left. Cummings
sat down and began a perfunctory check of the orders.Hamiltonwouldn't have
made any serious errors in detail.
It struck Cummings that Haven might be in a race between the Saurons killing
her defenders and the defenders turning into Saurons themselves. Or
worse, into people like Enoch Redfield - using the
Saurons to fuel their own ambitions.
Who would win?
Cummings decided that mere generals were not on God's need-to-know list for
the answer to that one.
From Roger Boyle's right, the almost meticulous rattle of Sauron suppressive
fire echoed around the hillside. Straight ahead, the last of Sargun's flanking
movement was vanishing up a ravine.
Boyle tried to wish himself smaller or the rock shielding him larger and more
firmly seated. It rocked if he sneezed, and a nearby explosion could send it
rolling over on to him. Unfortunately, the only position where it hid him was
directly downslope.
Other than that, he was having the time of his life. Growing up, he'd believed
that being a Tech meant he couldn't be a real Soldier. Now he was finding out
that wasn't true. He was no Cyborg, but even
Sargun was giving him a grudging respect.
He had to complete this mission with honor; the com bunker would not be home
after this.
One of the Soldiers going up the ravine bellowed like a muskylope twice. That
meant they were at the halfway point.
Boyle scanned the slope to both left and right, and resigned himself to
staying put. He had tried his best to convince Sargun to avoid the ravine.
While it was the quickest way to the crest, it was also the most obvious site
for an ambush.
So Boyle had done the next best thing: set up his command post where he could
keep track of events in the ravine. Sargun might need either reinforcing or
rescuing on very short notice.
A bullet whnnnggged off the boulder, making it quiver but not roll. "Got a
count of our friends up there?" Boyle asked the Under Assault Leader working
the scanner.
The Soldier shrugged. "The rock's warming up, along the crest. If they can
find cover in the sunny patches, they may not give an IR pulse." He rested a
hand on the scanner. "This fellow's due for an overhaul."
For which there are no spare parts within more light-years than even a Soldier
wanted to think about.
The Soldier began to make another scan of the crest. This involved
exposing himself to possible enemy fire, but none came. Maybe the squad's
base of fire was doing some good in return for the ammunition
expended. They were scheduled to meet one of the tilt-rotors at
Hill 2582, to pick up reinforcements and ammunition. Now, if they could
just get past this hill -
Somewhere above the ravine, the hillside vomited smoke and rocks. The
explosion slammed across
Boyle's ears, drowning out the firing. Then the rolling echoes of the
explosion were swallowed up by the roar of the landslide sweeping across the
hill.
The dust completely obscured the ravine and the hillside for fifty meters on
either side. The dust didn't
hide the strong IR pulse.
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"The cattle are moving, going to hit our people before they
recover!" the Under Assault Leader shouted.
"Coordinates?"
They came; Boyle cupped his hands and shouted them out. He heard them relayed,
then saw the flare of the rocket launcher.
He also saw dust spurting around the rock, and the Under Assault
Leader's head shatter as a ricocheting bullet smashed into the base of his
skull, just below the rim of his helmet. A little up, a little to the right or
the left, and it would have been no more than a headache.
But it had caught him where a Soldier was as vulnerable as cattle.
Boyle shouted and signaled for more suppressive fire on the crest, then
realized that the squad was already generating it. Three generations of
warfare had created Soldiers who automatically used tactics based on
squad-level initiative.
When Boyle was sure that the Haveners were either dead or pinned down, he
sprinted for the foot of the ravine. He'd covered a hundred meters
before the crest of the hill came to life again, and the remaining
hundred before they got his range. Meanwhile, his squad was hosing
the crest with their covering fire.
The survivors of the flanking squads appeared stunned, incapable of either
thought or movement. All of them were covered with dust and some of them,
including Sargun, oozed blood. Sargun's wound had stripped half the scalp off
the right side of his head, and his eyes were barely focused.
"Form up!" Boyle shouted. "Follow me back up the ravine. We need to clear the
head, then bring up the other squad and dig out our comrades."
"Dig - ?" someone said, his voice creaking like a rusty hatch.
"Of course, dig. It takes more than a few rocks to kill Soldiers."
This was true enough, but neither cattle nor Soldiers could survive
being buried under half-ton boulders. Also, anyone too badly hurt to walk
was going to present a problem. They were already at the limit of the number
of wounded they could carry without abandoning heavy weapons - but without
those, they'd be stobor bait.
Boyle looked at the Soldiers again. Words wouldn't reach them. Only actions
would register. He slammed a fresh magazine into his assault rifle and
shouted, "Follow me!"
He took the ravine at a rush, adrenalin pumping, slipping and sliding on loose
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