Gateway (Gateway Series Book 1) (12 page)

“Very well, Captain,” replied the general as he looked up from the hologram. “Inform General Lighthorse in sector five to commence operations against the main force. I will be in route with additional forces within the hour. General Nero, I will leave a brigade under General Fallingrock to augment your brigade.”

“Yes, General,” replied Nero. “What are your directions for the Xen regiment here?”

“Destroy them,” he replied.

***

Colonel Stone paced back and forth, one hand on his sidearm holster and the other resting on his sword. The heat radiating off the ground added a murky haze to the sea of wheat gently waving in the warm breeze.

He knew the enemy was out there somewhere.

“Sir?” asked an unusually apprehensive Martin.

“Tell him again,” said an exasperated Stone. “I recommend withdrawing from our current location to support the main force.”

“Yes, Sir,” Martin replied and walked over to the communications station to contact
Pantelus Varuk
and Cataline’s staff.

As Martin turned away another captain stepped up to Stone. “What do you think, Sir?” he asked.

“We have been on the ground most of the day and made no contact. Either there are no enemy forces nearby or if they are nearby, they are waiting for us to move out to spring a trap, or they aren’t too worried about our isolated regiment. If the latter is the case, the main force would need all of the support they could get.”

“Colonel!” shouted Martin as she ran toward Stone.

“What is it, Captain?”

A look of frustration came over her face. “Command orders you to press on toward the city. They have met more resistance than expected, including Terillian regulars, and they are hoping our position will draw some forces away from them.”

“Regulars?” said Stone. “Cataline and those idiots at High Command have dropped us into a trap.” Stone paused for a moment of contemplation. Martin and the small group of officers around him waited in anticipation of his next order.

Stone stepped toward Martin. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he looked into her eyes with determination. “Captain, order Major Gates to select a company to respond to breaks in the lines when they occur and have Major Vatarus ensure he has good secondary and tertiary defensive positions; those hills will be our best location to hold them off. They will be coming soon.”

“Sir, how do you know?” asked the young captain.

Captain Martin interrupted again. "Sir, our sensors are detecting motion from the west, east, and south. Lieutenant Jackson is reporting engagement with a Terillian Scout Ranger squad to the South as well.”

“Get those hawks in the air, Captain,” Stone ordered Martin. “And contact the
Pantelus Varuk
and request condor air cover.”

In the distance, gunfire could be heard—probably Jackson’s recon patrols. Stone looked across the hazy fields to the west and the sloping hills beyond.

“Incoming Terillian Alphas from the west and south!” shouted Martin, receiving a report from the comms center through her repeater.

Gunfire could now be heard from the north, growing in volume. Stone’s worst fears were materializing before him. Isolated and low on air support, enemy troops were coming out of the woodwork.

“Major Gates reports contact with irregulars,” reported Martin.

Scanning the horizon, Stone soon saw the small, fast-moving dots just above the treetops on the sloping hill. He looked back over his shoulder as his woeful number of hawks lifted off and flew overhead to engage the enemy, their thrusters temporarily drowning out the gunfire in the distance. The heat and wind from the thrusters washed over Stone’s body and blew up tiny tornadoes of dust as they passed. As the dust subsided, Stone watched the small force of hawks streak across the field in front of him on a collision course with the enemy aircraft.

The three anti-aircraft stations he was allotted by Cataline began to open fire as Terillian attack ships raced toward his position. There were a lot of them…a lot. As they grew closer, he saw the flashes from their tungsten Gatling guns just before the ground in front of him immediately erupted from their exploding shells. Fragments of dirt and metal pelted Stone’s body as he dove to the ground.

The sound of the enemy aircraft was deafening as they passed over his position. Rising to one knee, Stone shouted to Martin through the cloud of dust that still covered the area.

“Martin, I need those condors.”

“Roger, Sir,” replied Martin as pieces of rubble and earth still fell to the ground around her.

Stone rose and surveyed the damage from the strafing run. The young captain, or what was left of him, lay in a pile of wrecked flesh to his left. Stone took a deep breath…there would be more.

“At least it was quick,” said Martin as she looked at the remains of the captain and shook her head. Leaning in toward Stone so he could hear her over the noise of the battlefield, Martin shouted, “
Pantelus Varuk
reports they have released 3 condors for cover!”

“Three? That is all they can offer?”

“Admiral Sequentius wants to hold most of his condors near the fleet. He is now concerned that the magnetic concentrations were actually from Terillian Battleships. He wants to keep his condors close in case fighters from the planet engage the fleet.”

Stone felt his heart drop. “There were magnetic concentrations when we arrived and they still chose to continue with the mission?” he asked, shocked that ground commanders had not been informed. “There were probably more than enough Terillians on Juliet 3 to not only destroy our regiment but possibly the whole force?”

“Colonel, over there!” shouted Martin.

Stone looked toward the south and Major Vatarus’s battalion. The rocky terrain below his lines came alive with movement. Like swarming insects, hundreds of Terillians poured over the broken, rocky ground. The attack was about to begin in earnest. Stone turned back to Martin. “We need to get fire on that position now!” he ordered while pointing toward the Terillian soldiers rushing toward them.

The thud of artillery fire from the two small hills roared across the field as his order was carried out.

Soon the swarming mass of enemy troops was dotted with bright flashes as the artillery rounds exploded amongst them. The rapid percussion of large caliber automatic weapons from the five hover tanks under Stone’s command soon joined the chorus as red tracers made their way toward the Terillians.

The tracers reminded Stone of angry hornets as they tore through anything in their path but despite the deadly fire, the Terillianskept coming.

Finally, at about eight hundred meters, they were in range of small arms.

Stone looked toward Martin and nodded.

“Light ‘em up!” she ordered and the rattle of hundreds of automatic rifles created a constant percussion of noise against the thuds and explosions of larger weapons.

The concentration of fire created what looked like a solid wall of death as metal tore into the advancing enemy.

Hundreds fell.

To Stone’s surprise, a Terillian emerged from the rippling web of tracers, then another, and another. Unbelievably, some had survived the onslaught and kept coming. Soon they crossed Stone’s lines.

Fortunately, the devastating fire had taken a toll on the enemy’s numbers and the few that reached his lines were soon pushed back and started to retreat back across the fields littered with their dead and injured.

A cheer went up across Stone’s lines as the Terillians retreated. An excited soldier turned toward Stone.

“We’ve defeated them, Sir!” he shouted.

Stone looked across the field; the battle was only a few minutes old and hundreds lay dead in front of him. “No, Corporal,” replied Stone. “That was the first wave. They were just letting us know they were out there. There will be more. Look back toward the ridge,” continued Stone as he pointed back across the field where  dozens of Terillian hover tanks were massing.

“Damn,” replied the young soldier as he gripped his rifle, noticeably shaken.

Stone placed his hand on the soldier’s shoulder. “The day is young, Corporal. Remember you fight for our people…they will need our best today.”

***

Throughout the afternoon wave after wave crashed against Stone’s positions. Stone moved up and down his lines reinforcing weakened areas, strengthening morale, and supporting shaken officers. Standing at the crest of the tallest hill in his line as the sun began to set, he received the latest update from Martin.

“Major Gates has been killed by a Terillian attack craft while trying to rally Lieutenant Savoy’s platoon. Major Bruni has taken direct command of Gates’s battalion but he is slowly giving up ground under repeated attacks. We’re making the Ters pay for each meter, Sir, but were slowly being forced back in all areas.”

“What’s the status of our air support?” asked Stone.

“All of our hawks are out of commission and the three condors the Lucius sent have been chased out of the sky by a squadron of Foxtrots.”

“Do you have any good news, Captain?”

“Well,” replied Martin, “our northern lines have been forced into a thin enclave a few hundred meters from the base of the two hills held by Major Vatarus so at least you won’t have to run so far between units.” Martin gave a quick smile to Stone; the situation was bad but they had both been in bad situations before.

“Always the optimist,” he replied. “Let’s check in with Vatarus.”

As the two ran toward the crest of the largest hill, they passed wrecked hover tanks, discarded and damaged weapons, and the dead and wounded. Quickly making their way to the top of the hill, they soon saw Vatarus directing a nearby heavy gun position.

“How are you holding up, Major?” asked Stone.

“Could be—” Vatarus winced as a medic repositioned his blood-soaked left arm to apply a dressing. “Could be better. We have held off three major assaults. The last was hand to hand but we held those bastards off.”

“How are your defenses, Major?” inquired Martin.

“We’re holding our current positions,” he replied while the medic applied coagulant gels to his arm. “We have 240 killed or severely wounded, thirty-five missing or unaccounted for with 225 still under arms. Our ammunition is at 25 percent.”

“Bruni is a little worse off,” added Martin as she turned toward Stone. “He has about two hundred men and is about the same for ammo.”

“It looks like we’re facing at least a brigade to the south, Sir,” grunted Vatarus as the medic injected a nerve suppressor into his mangled arm. “I think they’ll make their final push soon.”

Stone looked over the field as the last rays of light passed over the hills from where the Terillian hordes had been launching their relentless attacks. The pastures and farmland in front of his lines were now charred and smoking with hundreds, maybe thousands of Terillian dead littering the desolate wasteland. As he pondered the destruction, Martin’s voice brought Stone back.

“If they attack in force in more than one position we’ll be overrun,” said Martin.

Stone struggled to decide his next move. The weight of command weighed heavily on him.

“What’s your plan, Sir?” asked Vatarus.

“Surrender is not an option,” interjected Stone. “No Xen unit has ever surrendered in recorded history.”

“We can’t retreat either,” added Vatarus. “We have no control of the airspace and if we make a run for it we would be swept from the field by Ter Alpha aircraft and hover tanks.”

Martin raised her hand to inform Stone and Vatarus she was receiving a report. “Sir, Bruni reports troops massing near his positions.”

Suddenly two Terillian attack craft soared over their position, their Gatling guns spewing death as they passed.

Stone dove for cover in the battlement as the earth exploded all around in a swirling mass of dirt, metal, and flesh. As the dust settled from the strafing run, Stone gathered himself and rose from the ground looking for the others.

“Are you all right, Sir?” asked Martin, sitting up on her knees to dust of the debris from her uniform.

“I’m fine. Where’s Vatarus?” As he asked the question he turned to his left and saw Vatarus, the medic, and the gun crew still lying on the ground.

Martin had seen them first and was already rushing in their direction. Reaching the gun emplacement, Martin looked at the medic and the gun crew.

The gun crew was dead and the medic was frantically searching his bag for meds for what remained of his left leg. Vatarus lay face down in the wreckage. Kneeling next to him, Martin rolled him over and with a sigh gently returned him to his previous position. “He’s dead,” said Martin as Stone reached them.

“Damn it!” he exclaimed. “That’s it, Captain, We’ve bled enough here. Get me the comms link to
Pantelus Varuk
. We need to get off this rock.”

Martin paused momentarily. She had never seen her mentor accept defeat. She slowly handed the comms link to Stone.

“Lima Charlie, this is Romeo Charlie, over.”

***

Onboard
Pantelus Varuk
, Cataline, Admiral Sequentius, and Colonel Neo stood behind the senior watch officer in Combat Control. Lima Charlie this is Romeo Charlie over came through the comm lines.