Her Brother's Keeper - eARC (39 page)

The key now was getting to the vehicle and escaping without being cut off or surrounded by Lang’s militia, who were converging on Lang’s Burg with a vengeance.

Chapter 28

The Privateer Ship
Andromeda

183 kilometers northwest of Lang’s Burg

Captain Catherine Blackwood stood sternly on the cargo deck, hands folded behind her back, as she watched her cargo handlers secure the last of Aristotle Lang’s trade goods. Everything had to be logged, checked, fastened down, and symmetrically laid out so as not to unbalance the ship. Under Cargomaster Kimball’s close supervision, the process was going as slowly as possible. The ship’s cargo crane, they had insisted, could only handle one of the large boxes of stolen alien artifacts at a time. It could handle much more than that, but the illiterate fools delivering the goods to the
Andromeda
weren’t in any position to argue. They stood around in a cluster at the base of the ship, with two dozen ground vehicles, watching stupidly as the cargo was loaded onto the ship at a snail’s pace.

Catherine had very much hoped that Aristotle Lang would be so foolish, so arrogant as to want to oversee the transfer himself. Had that happened, she had fully intended on inviting him onto the ship for a tour, then holding
him
hostage until her brother was returned unharmed. If at all possible, she’d planned on keeping him until the
Andromeda
lifted off and personally flushing him out the airlock one they’d gotten into orbit. His frozen corpse could orbit Zanzibar for hundreds of years, a shining example of why brigandage was a poor career path.

The captain hadn’t been surprised when Lang didn’t oblige her personal vengeance fantasy, but she was disappointed.
Oh well,
she thought to herself, her face a mask.
He’ll be surprised enough when I send him a farewell video with Cecil next to me on the command deck, his precious cargo still secured in my hold.
The mask cracked a little, and she allowed herself an evil smile.

When the assault on Lang’s Burg began, Catherine had feigned ignorance of it. Lang was suspicious of her, but since she was still over a hundred kilometers away, slowly and calmly loading his cargo, he hadn’t done anything about it. She had warned Lang that if anything happened to her brother, even if it was the fault of whatever enemies he had, the deal was off and she’d be keeping his precious cargo. He hadn’t liked that one bit, but her acting had been convincing.

Luis Azevedo’s voice sounded over her earpiece. “Captain!” he said excitedly. “Incoming transmission from the ground team!” A tone sounded, and Azevedo’s voice was replaced with that of Devree Starlighter. “
Andromeda
, this is Cowboy-Overwatch. Egressing from Lang’s Burg now. Package in tow, I say again, the package is in tow. We are being pursued. Requesting pickup at extraction site Charlie, over.”

Catherine’s heart was in her throat. They’d
done
it. Marcus, that magnificent son of a bitch, had
done
it. “I’m monitoring the feed from the drone, Captain,” Azevedo said, snapping her out of her elation. It wasn’t over yet. “Lang’s militia is on full alert. There’s a convoy of vehicles arriving at Lang’s Burg now. Sensors detect more coming in from nearby settlements. I’ve got eyes on our ground team. They’re in a two vehicle convoy headed toward extraction site Charlie. The terrain is rough and they can’t go that fast. Captain, they’re being pursued. They’re…stand by.”

“Luis? What’s happening?” Catherine asked, unable to hide the concern in her voice. Lang’s men, gathered all around the
Andromeda
’s landing jacks, were either unaware of the firefight in Lang’s Burg or didn’t care about it.

“Captain, the ground team is in trouble. Their big truck, the one carrying the powered armor, is stopped. Something wrong with the wheel I think, I can’t tell from the feed. The other truck isn’t big enough to transport them all. Hostile vehicles are about to catch up with them. What are your orders?”

“Prep the ship for liftoff. Sound general quarters. I want a short-hop trajectory to get us to the ground team. High altitude, come straight down on top of them, as close as we can get without burning their hair off. Tell them to we’re coming for them, and to hold on. I’ll be on the command deck momentarily.” She turned her attention to the crew on the cargo deck as the ship’s general quarters klaxons began to sound. “Mr. Kimball, is the cargo secured?”

Kimball turned to Annabelle Winchester, who had been hustling through the cargo deck, doing final checks on everything. She flashed him a thumb’s up. He nodded and answered the captain, “It is. We can lift off at any time.”

“Very good. Secure the hatch. Get to your stations.” Captain Blackwood turned for the ladder.

Azevedo piped up over her earpiece again. “Captain, what about the guys on the ground? External feed shows they’re not moving. I don’t know if they’re waiting for orders, or if they thought we’d tell them when to clear out, or what, but if they’re still there at ignition they
won’t
be there a second later. What do you want me to do, ma’am?”

“Do nothing,” Catherine said coldly. “They’ll move when we start spinning up the engines. If they don’t have the sense to do that, well…how unfortunate.”

* * *

“Suppressing fire!” Marcus shouted, even though there was no need for him to do so with his helmet’s communications suite. Jeremiah Hondo, covering behind a damaged heavy truck, ripped off a long burst from his machine gun. Benjamin Halifax’s plasma gun lanced out into the dim light. The heavy truck, overloaded with the weight of the powered armor, had broken an axle on the rocky, uneven terrain. Devree and Randy’s vehicle had beeb pursued by Lang’s militia from the moment they’d left Lang’s Burg, and now that the convoy was stopped, the pursuers had caught up. Now they were firing heavy weapons, mortars and rockets, at the mercenaries, pinning them down. Even Halifax, in his powered armor, had to make careful use of available cover. The heavy weapons were powerful enough to destroy his suit, and even enough concentrated small arms fire could damage it.

Covering behind a rocky outcrop in a pile of spent plastic cartridge cases, Marcus slammed a fresh magazine home and leaned out, looking for targets of opportunity. Beside him, Wade Bishop fired off two shots from his own rifle before ducking back down, barely avoiding a hail of incoming gunfire.

“They’re pretty pissed off!” Wade said, reloading his rifle.

Marcus snapped off a controlled pair, dropping a rifle-wielding militiaman only two hundred meters away. “Lang must’ve figured out what we did!” he said. “Probably told them to get Cecil back or he’d kill them all!”

“Bloody hell!” Cecil exclaimed, rock chunks pelting him as bullets impacted all around. He was farther down the sloping rock formation the mercenaries were using for cover, tending to the Zanzibaran woman who’d taken a bullet for him. He’d been given a pistol, but hadn’t yet fired it. Whenever an incoming missile or mortar detonated nearby, he’d shelter the unconscious woman with his own body. “I’ll shoot myself before that bastard gets me back!”

An unguided rocket screeched overhead, grazed the roof of one of the disabled trucks, and veered off-course, exploding in midair. Ken Tanaka responded with a missile from a single-shot, disposable launcher. Unlike the crude munitions the militia were using, this rocket
was
guided. It impacted one of the militia gun trucks with a loud bang, knocking the vehicle on its side and leaving it burning.

Another gun truck rounded a rocky outcropping. In its bed was mounted a large caliber machine gun, blazing away at the mercenaries’ position. These improvised gun trucks, called “technicals” for reasons that had been lost to history, were the mainstay of Lang’s forces, and he seemed to have an endless supply of them.

Ken Tanaka was able to get a missile lock on the truck through the smart-link to Wade’s rifle scope. He fired his last single-shot missile launcher upward, at an angle, without leaving cover. The rocket’s engine kicked on with a roar an instant later. Thrust-vectoring paddles flipped the missile over in midair, sending it shrieking down on top of the technical. It detonated with a flash, engulfing the truck in a hydrogen and ammunition-fueled fireball.

Several of his Cowboys let out cries of victory, but Marcus knew they weren’t in the clear yet. One more gun truck had been destroyed, but there were still probably three dozen gunmen and several more technicals out there. The team was running low on ammunition, were saddled with a wounded woman they couldn’t move very quickly, and had no working vehicles. The
Andromeda
was inbound, but Lang’s forces had reinforcements on the way, and the gunmen already on the ground kept pushing closer and closer.

There was only one thing to do:
attack.

“Listen up!” Marcus said, speaking to the whole team on the radio. “Dev, Randy, you two move off our left, push forward, and find a position to fire on their right flank. Ken, Ben, same thing, but head right. Halifax, me and Wade will fall in behind you, using you for mobile cover. We’re going to provide fire support for the flank elements until they get into position, then we’re going down the center. Cover to cover, move fast, keep going forward. We gotta take ’em out before they regroup. Any questions?”

“Ah, yes!” someone said timidly. “What shall I do?” It was Cecil Blackwood.

“Mr. Blackwood, it’s my job to get you back to your sister alive,” Marcus said. “I’ll do everything I can to keep them off you until the ship arrives, but I can’t promise you anything. No matter what happens, stay here, and stay alive until then. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Good. Alright, Cowboys, let’s do this! Overwatch team, move, move, move!”

“Hey!” Cecil said, getting Marcus’ attention. “Mr. Winchester? Thank you for this. I won’t forget this. No matter what happens, you and all your families will be taken care of! I swear it!”

Marcus and Wade both nodded at Cecil. “Just stay alive, man,” Wade said. “One thing at a time, yeah?”

* * *

Off on the left flank, Devree and Randy vaulted from one rocky outcrop to the next, bullets snapping overhead in the thin air. Randy went prone behind a windblown boulder and fired off several short bursts from his carbine, allowing Devree to leap to the next available cover.

“Gotcha covered!” she said, shouldering the little 5.45mm personal defense weapon she carried as a backup to her unwieldy rifle.

“Moving!” Randy said. He pushed himself off the hard ground, feet skidding in the dust, and ran for Devree’s position as fast as he could. He dove down and slid to a stop next to her, grateful for the knee pads integrated into his trousers. “I gotcha covered! Put that rifle together!”

Devree nodded, took cover, stripped off her pack, and began assembling her rifle as Randy fired off single shots at the enemy’s position. The militiamen were holed up behind a rocky terrain feature about two hundred meters from the mercenaries’ position, and had taken enough casualties in their assaults that they were now mostly keeping their heads down, waiting for reinforcements of their own. Off in the distance, Hondo and Tanaka pushed forward, flanking them from the right.

Halifax was using his suit’s plasma weapon sparingly, as he was running low on fuel cells and spare barrels for it, but the enemy militiamen seemed to be terrified of it. Even near-misses caused horrific burns. Direct hits caused the fluids in a human body to flash-evaporate, blowing the victim apart in a cloud of steam and boiling blood. Hits on solid objects like rock and stone caused explosive decoupling and dangerous secondary fragmentation. Plasma weapons were banned on most worlds, and were heavy, expensive, and maintenance-intensive on top of it. But a full-up plasma gun, mounted on powered armor, in the hands of an aggressive killer like Halifax, was a fearsome instrument. His voice boomed over the suit’s PA system. “Cry some more, you sons of whores! I’m a comin’ for ya! Ha ha ha!”

As Devree slid her rifle’s barrel into place and locked it in, Captain Blackwood’s commanding voice crackled over the teams’ battle net. “Cowboy, this is the
Andromeda
,” the captain said calmly. “We are on our way. ETA nine minutes.”

“Cowboy-Six copies!” Marcus replied, breathing over the radio. “We’re holding them off, but enemy reinforcements are en route. The package is still alive, but he has another person with him who’s wounded. She’s going to need immediate medical attention.”

“Copy that. A med team will be standing by. We’ll have to land at least five hundred meters from your position. Can you make it that far?”

“We’ll hold our own, Captain, but sooner would be better. Cowboy-6 out.”

Devree set the heavy sniper rifle down in front of her, pulling her thermoptic cloak down over her head. The rifle’s bulky, camouflage-painted shape stuck out from under the active camouflage garment, which mimicked whatever colors were around it and masked (if only temporarily) a person’s thermal signature. Using them was power intensive and had to be done sparingly.

A warning from their little recon drone flashed in the sniper team’s smart goggles. “What’s that?” Devree asked.

“Balls,” Randy muttered, before transmitting over the battle net. “Cowboy-6, Overwatch! Be advised, incoming enemy aircraft, high rate of speed, ETA momentarily, how copy?”

Marcus sounded confused. “Say again?”

“Get down!” Randy shouted into his microphone. “Incoming gunships!”

A pair of ungainly looking aircraft came into view a moment later. The Orlov Combine refugees from Sanctuary had warned that Lang’s forces were getting some attack aircraft put together, but they didn’t know how far along they were.
Pretty goddamn far along,
Devree thought bitterly, as the armored VTOL roared at them forty meters off of the deck. It was an ugly thing, held aloft by two massive, screaming, ducted-fan engines and bristling with guns and rockets. It was headed right for the sniper team.

“Do you have a shot on that thing?”

“I think so!” Devree replied. “Hold on a sec!”

“We don’t have a sec!” The gunship blasted off a volley of rockets that shrieked toward the sniper team at hundreds of meters per second. Randy barely had time to throw himself over Devree and push her head down before the first blast, and all was lost in darkness, dust, and the roar of explosions.