AMP Private War (19 page)

As we continued to move up the hall, Frig provided us with a video feed of the area. "Sir, I count 19 Milgari, four dead. Only five have shooting positions. I would suggest Hollis work his magic on the right hand side where 14 of the 19 have taken their positions."

Hollis replied, "Already on it Chief!"

Zzp!

"Eighteen to go!"

Zzp!

"Seventeen!"

The Marines were professionals. Their tactics and training showed as they moved up the hallway closer to the prize. At 150 meters we had our first casualty since Hennings. Corporal Mary Whethers took a glancing bolt to the right arm. The suit had done its job of lowering the charge, but the advertising stand beside her had taken the brunt of the ion expansion. Composite and metallic shards had ripped into her left leg.

"Man down! Medic!"

The medic and a second Marine grabbed her up under the arms and dragged her into a nearby store. The Marine returned to the fight while the medic prepped the Corporal for evac. The right pant leg of her suit was removed and the eight pieces of shrapnel slowly withdrawn.

The medic attempted to distract her attention from her wounds, "Nice gams Whethers. I didn't think the Marines allowed those!"

Whethers winced and managed a shallow smile as a three inch piece of a metal frame was pulled from her flesh, "Girls gotta have her good points. I got this ugly mug from my daddy, these fun bags on my chest came from my momma, the legs... they were passed down from my grandma. She was a dancer in the Grid Follies!"

We had closed to within 40 meters when bolts again began to fly wildly down the hall. Storefronts shattered, littering the hallway with debris. Tiles on the floor exploded upward as low bolts impacted.

Frig came on the comm with the bad news. "Count says there are 304 Milgari soldiers coming your way. I suggest finding substantial cover Sir. If they all begin firing that hallway is going to become a death trap of shrapnel Sir!"

I called across the hall, "Meyer! You hear that! We got 304 charging at us. Frig! Where are the other Marines! Five Raiders should have landed. That's 160 more marines that I don't see!"

Frig responded, "Captain Demissal has them coming up a parallel hallways Sir, They should be breaking in behind the Milgari in about six minutes."

I replied, "All 160 going there? We need backup here! Why wasn't at least one of those groups routed our way?"

Frig passed the comm over to Captain Demissal, "Grange! That decision was made before those 300 showed up. We thought we could stop the escape and defend your position as we withdrew with the Torrians. Those troops in front of you did not show on any video feeds we had."

I grimaced at our bad luck and then replied, "So, Captain, tell me some good news!"

The Captain responded, "I'm afraid the news doesn't get better Grange. We estimate that 2,500 soldiers moved out of the garrison at the mine before we could get over there and shut the place down. They went underground and we can only guess that they are headed your way. We are blasting that ground in between you and the garrison pretty hard, but we don't know where that tunnel leads or how deep it runs. If it's hardened we won't be able to shut it down before they get to your position."

I again grimaced and spit out a few choice words. "How long do we have before we can expect their company!"

The Captain responded, "Best guess is about 45 minutes, but you will need to be ready to move in 20 to 25. We don't yet have an idea of what their transportation is. I have a man working on that express bus you tried to hop. If he can override the governor on it we might have you a set of wheels for evac. He has some old man over there badgering him about it, but he seems harmless."

I had to chuckle at the thought of the old Woulfan harrassing the Marine. It was a moment of comedy in an otherwise bloody and chaotic situation.

Debris continued to fly as the Milgari began to push in our direction. They took heavy casualties as they advanced. Hollis continued to work his magic. As each Milgari stepped out into the hall to move forward he was met with fire from our weapons. Their advance was slow, but steady.

I spoke, "Frig! Where are those other troops? We are starting to lose ground here!"

Frig responded, "They are moving into position now Sir. You should see the result momentarily."

In an instant the Milgari push turned into a fight for their lives. The Marines from the other Raider ships had made their way into the fray. In the first minute of the counter assault 76 Milgari lay dead.

The Milgari realized they were caught in a crossfire and changed their tactics. Several squads broke through the walls in the backs of the stores and had soon made their way behind our position. Hollis, after having racked up 52 kills, was the first to take a bolt in the back. Once again the scene in the hallway grew chaotic as bolts flew and debris darkened the air.

I spoke, "Meyer! I count eight store entrances up to where the Torrians are! I say we take a team back in here behind me and we start blasting our way through these walls. Retail space can't be very hardened!"

Meyers nodded and assigned Weaver, Nellis and Campbell to accompany me. She remained trapped on the opposite side of the hallway. The first wall came down within seconds, followed soon after by the second. When we reached the store in front of where the Torrians were we encountered three Milgari soldiers. Weaver rolled into an aisle taking out the first while Campbell blew the head off the second with a precision shot. The third countered by dropping to the floor and blowing off the lower third of Nellis' left leg. A medic was called as Weaver again rolled and took the kill shot. Nellis was stabilized and the medic was soon dragging him back towards our original position.

I turned to Campbell and Weaver, "Campbell, you and I are going to set our power levels down to two. Weaver, you stay on full. Any Milgari in there belong to Weaver. Campbell, you and I are popping those Torrians and dragging their asses out of there."

Campbell placed a string of plasma charges on the wall. We settled behind a counter and the detonator was pressed. Boom! A perfect wall cutout of the plasma line fell through to the other side. Weaver was first through, blasting a Milgari as he went. I rolled through next and managed to wing one of the Torrians, spinning her around and into a rack of Woulfan clothing.

Weaver stood and fired, striking two Milgari in the chest, putting an end to their existence. Campbell moved to the far wall and was soon in a position for a shot at the other Torrian. As he raised his weapon a Milgari bolt tore into his side, his ribcage exploded, sending a fine mist of red blood over the adjoining area.

The uninjured Torrian took the opportunity to try to run and a bolt from my blaster landed square in the center of her back. She was knocked to the floor hard. I then turned my weapon towards a charging Milgari. Three shots banged hard against his chest but he continued to come. An instant before he reached my position his head exploded from a shot by Weaver. We were now in control of the store.

I yelled, "Grab her ass and let’s get moving!"

I placed my hand under the Torrians arm and began to drag, stopping for a moment to look at Campbell, "What about Campbell, I hate to leave him on a foreign world?"

Weaver responded as I continued to drag the Torrian through the heat. "Campbell doesn't care anymore Grange. If he did care he would say ‘Get your sorry asses moving so I didn't die for nothing!’"

When we rejoined Meyer's position she barked out an order, "Let's fall back to the Helix! Mason! Jordan! Get over here and start dragging those prisoners! We have a lot of ground to cover and a world of hurt may be coming our way!"

As the other Marines mopped up the remaining Milgari group of 300 soldiers we began the trek back to the Helix. We had moved the first hundred meters when the comm lit up with chatter.

"We have incoming Milgari! Sarge! This is the big one, looks like they brought the whole garrison!" The Marines dug in their positions as we continued to move towards the ships.

The heat was unending and I could tell my legs were beginning to fatigue. I was fit, but that fitness did not equal that of the warriors who surrounded me. I made a mental note to remedy that situation when we returned to the Suppressor.

As I ran along with the others I was startled and dropped to the floor as a vehicle approached us from the ships. It was the express bus from the hangar and it was quickly laden with tired and injured Gray Ghouls and their two Torrian captives. The bus was soon moving along at a good clip.

The motion of the air brought a level of cool to my battle suit that I had not felt since our arrival. The bus soon pulled to a stop beside the Helix.

As we loaded our wounded onto the ship I asked Frig for a status of the firefight. "Sir, they are holding their own, but it is against an overwhelming force Sir."

As I stepped up into the hold of the Swift and set the door to close I offered a suggestion, "Any way we can fly over that section of that place and put a hurt on their position from the air? I mean, has anyone thought of that!"

Frig replied, The Hunter is doing that as we speak. I expect an update momentarily."

The comm then crackled with a response that was relayed from the Hunter, "This is Carrolson. That strike was dead on. It should be a mop up operation from here but we are going to need all the medics you can spare. I've got a lot of casualties down here!"

The raid was a success by most standards, but we had lost a lot of good men. Three had perished on the freighter while a full 46 had died during the raging battle on Woulf. Another 37 Marines would be placed on retirement as their injuries would no longer allow them to fight. Death of men fighting for the cause was something that I took hard, but I now knew that my cause was just, the pullback of the Milgari was proof.

The Colonel and his men returned from a successful raid of their own. Three Milgari frigates and a cruiser had been captured as well as a small freighter full of Tantric ore. The Milgari were changing their tactics by using smaller ships for transport. If a ship was pirated it would no longer cost them six months of production. More freighters would mean our jobs just got a little harder.

We began the immediate interrogation of the two captured Torrians. They were sisters from the House of Maliashe. The eldest was the closest to her mother and the keeper of the family fortune. She was also on the committee for the defense of the empire, giving her access to many of the Torrian tactics and plans. The venture to capture the Torrians had cost valuable lives. The Marines who remained called it a great victory.

On our fourth session with the Torrians they gave up information that we had been seeking.

"Our supply lines run through a main corridor with Barithia at one end. If Barithia falls, we can no longer feed the war effort in the Pollus sector. I have heard of the loss of the Tantric ore. Our Milgari forces grow weak without the ships needed for battle. It is feared that the Mu Darker spies have already gotten wind of our problems. If so, an attack from them may be coming in the near future, we may not be able to defend against it this time."

The Colonel had returned with a handful of Milgari as prisoners. George established a lab, drew blood samples and hired the researchers needed to analyze and extract the Torrian drug. With the drug in hand we could then begin testing the captives for an antidote. If the trials were detrimental to the Milgari captives we could always capture more. The testing was a tactic that I was not comfortable with, but the fate of our species as well as the Milgari was dependent on our success.

I waited for the Colonel in my office. We were to discuss a plan to first locate Barithia and then to track a ship back to the planet Torrus. From there we would be able to analyze their defenses as well as map out their entire empire. Knowing your enemy was always high on the list of both sides in a war. The Torrians had spies on the Grid. We would need the same to level the playing field.

Once Torrus was located our efforts would be turned towards planning a strike on Barithia. If successful, we believed that the Torrians would have to withdraw from the Pollus sector. A weaker Torrian Empire meant the Grid would have more time to prepare for a defense. It was also not out of the question that an attack on the Torrians could be coming from the Mu Darkers. If so, the Torrians would require all the resources they had to defend themselves.

For the first time in my life I began to believe there was light at the end of the tunnel. What would man be able to accomplish with a planet of their own, what alliances could be built with fair minded species, what could man achieve through peace that he had been unable to do while on the run? The possibility of such a major change for my species was almost scary unto itself.

My solace was broken when the Colonel entered the room. "Grange! Let’s get down to business. We should have the new cruiser and frigates ready in a few weeks, we just need recruits to man them. My efforts on the Grid are running dry. We are running the risk of drawing that unwanted attention if we dip into that bucket anymore."

I sat down at the table with the Colonel, "What do you propose? I don’t know of any other free species we can trust. There are too many that don’t understand what the Milgari… Torrian takeover will do to their lives."

The Colonel replied, "You hit the nail on the head Grange! Free species! We can’t trust the species in this sector as they do not have a history of war with the Milgari. What I am thinking is what we saw on some of those planets out there in the Pollus sector. The 150,000 miners we left on that Tantric planet or that population you just left back on Woulf. They may need training, but that is something we can provide."

"If we draw from a pool of species that have been overrun by the Milgari they will be motivated to succeed at all costs. It will give them hope that they can one day return to their planet as free citizens. Nobody fights harder than a man with hope Grange. Nobody!"

The Colonel was right. We needed soldiers if we were going to expand our war. The Milgari numbered in the millions if not billions. Our recent ventures had shown that we needed the ability to put boots on the ground. Whether that ground was the deck of a ship or the dirt of a planet, we were in need of fighters.

The Grid had more than a half million military retirees. Of those, only a small percent were mentally and physically fit to perform the duties we required. Of the remainder, an even smaller percent were capable of once again gaining the level of fitness that was needed for going into battle.

The Colonel’s estimates placed those numbers at 15,000, 3,000 of which we had already recruited. The 12,000 or so remaining retirees would be exponentially difficult to recruit. Many had no interest in joining the cause while others posed the risk of exposing our operation. The Grid still had a powerful military, a military that we did not want to be thrown into political conflict with.

The Colonel spoke, "OK, looks like our recruiting on the Grid is largely finished for now. I think the planet Woulf might be a good spot to pick up some fighters. Our problem with that is, we don’t have the facilities to house or train a large number of rescued fighters. I would like to see us get that number up to at least 50,000 before attacking a planet the size of Barithia. And I think that only shuts down the supply line; we won’t be taking over with that small a force."

"We will also need ships for their transport and arms and uniforms for them to wear. Outfitting and training an army is a big job Grange."

The Colonel paused and then spit on the floor. "But I think we have the people and the will to make it happen. Say the word and I’ll get the ball rolling on my end!"

The Colonel stood and left the room after the command was given. He was off to begin his planning. I would be working with George to transfer our new supply of Silver ore to one of our super freighters for storage. The Silver ore ship, captured at Woulf, would become our new troop transport. It would need to house, feed and carry up to 50,000 fighters, fighters that we would use in our assault of Barithia.

The assault freighter would need shuttles for moving troops to the ground or for assaulting other ships. The transformation of the ship would be a vast undertaking, but George’s automated docks were beginning to come online. I met with him to discuss our needs.

George spoke, "Don I’m beginning to think we need a new person for this task. I’m good at acquiring things. You want it? I’ll figure out how to get it! But this is manufacturing and we need someone who can handle jobs of this scale. I’m getting spread a bit too thin lately and it’s taking a toll on my efficiency. I know I’m needed and I could not be happier than to stay busy with what I’m doing, but you need a builder Don, someone who knows how to make the best use of those docks out there. If you want I can find a ship builder and try to recruit him."

After our discussion I took on the task of finding a manager for our automated construction docks. There were several worlds where I had to have repairs done on the Swift, but I was not comfortable with bringing in a non-human who did not feel they had a dog in this fight, even if they really did. I instead turned my sights on a small craft builder on the Grid.

Honus Johnson operated a small transport craft manufacturing facility that also managed ship repairs when sales were slow. He had been a good friend of my father and was instrumental in me getting the Swift up and running when I had first purchased her. I paid a visit to him on the Grid.

Honus spoke, "Yes Sir? I was told you asked for me personally about some business? What can I do Mr.?..."

He held out his hand and I shook it. "May we talk somewhere private Mr. Johnson? The matters I wish to discuss are highly confidential."

Honus nodded and showed me into his office. "Have a seat and what can I do Mr.?..."

I remained standing until the door was closed. When Honus sat in his chair I placed my hands on his desk. "It’s me Honus, Don Grange. I need your help."

Honus leaned forward, "Don? What did you do to your face? I can see it’s you in the eyes, but everything looks off."

I sat in the chair and began to tell him my story, "… and here I am today. I… we need your help Honus. I know you have a good solid business and if it is a question of money just say the word and I’ll purchase it from you for whatever price you name. I need to build ships and I need them built right. You will initially have access to two of the newest auto construction docks with more in the future if needed. Our funds are not an issue and the people we already have on-board are the best of the best."

Honus stood and paced slowly behind his chair as he rubbed his chin. "That is a lot to think about in a very short time Don. When would you need an answer by?"

I stood and again placed my hands on his desk. "I need your response today Honus. I know it is short notice, but we need to get our operation up and running as soon as possible."

"If you can leave with me today, and if when you get there you are not ready for such a commitment, then I will have you flown back here immediately. I know Pearl passed away last year and I’m sorry I was unable to attend the funeral, but the warrant out for Don Grange prevented that. If you want I can come back at 4PM for an answer. Or, if you know the answer now then just say it, I won’t judge you either way."

Honus held up his hand with his palm open, "Just give me a minute… you say you have a Milgari cruiser?"

I smiled, "We have two of them and we plan on getting a lot more. I want to build a navy that’s big enough to hit them hard. And if we can knock them down once we will keep knocking them down until they don’t get up again. If we can weaken them sufficiently, there are other empires out there that will finish the job."

When we arrived back at the Suppressor Honus was in awe. "You accomplished all this in these few short years? That is a bit hard to believe!"

I took Honus to my office window so that he could look down at the planet below. "I can't believe it myself. All these people, working towards the same goals and I have yet to hear one complaint about what has to be done. This whole thing has been mind boggling."

"These people, they want to do this, they want to rid the Grid of the Milgari threat for good. And the scary thing is I think we may have a shot at doing just that! If we can sufficiently disrupt the Torrian operations at Barithia, we can push then back for years. And we intend on keeping up the pressure after that with continued raids on their mines. Cut off their resources and you cut off their ability to function as an empire."

I then pointed out the auto construction docks that were being built. "Those will be yours Honus. I... we will be counting on you to put those to their best use. And if you need parts or supplies or even more docks, just say the word and George will make it happen. With the loot we have obtained from the Torrians we do not want for credits."

Honus stood staring out the window as he made his decision. "I'll do it! This... this is just spectacular! The whole operation put together without the politicos on the Grid mucking it up. You do know that when they find out they will try to lay claim somehow. Most of you are citizens of the Grid. I'm not saying that it is right, I'm just saying that those schmoes in the Grand Hall are going to want a piece of this."

I smiled and then told him about Admiral Zimmerman and his efforts. "... And he is tied to some of those politicos. As an officer in the Grid military they will try to confiscate what he has. They have no claim to this territory, this planet, these assets or really even these people. The Grid has no official capacity here and certainly no authority."

I continued, "I would stack one of our Raiders against a standard Grid battleship. And as I said, it would take them time to deal with Zimmerman. And if word leaked out that we were responsible for a Milgari pullback? Well, show me a politician that wants to be on the other end of that one."

Honus was ready to start immediately. I assigned two of our men to go back to the Grid and arrange for the sale of his business. Whatever they were able to get for it, we would match, effectively doubling his payout. Honus was a great asset to have aboard and I was sure it would not be long before his production showed it.

I returned to my window and to looking at the planet below. Could this one day be our new home world, a world where humans could grow and prosper, a world without the constant threat of annihilation? I wondered if there would be those who preferred to stay on the Grid. Either way, it would be nice to have the option.