The Ninth (52 page)

A large pulse of energy launched out of Ronald’s sniper rifle, colliding against the three-pronged limb of a Slasher.  The damaged Slasher slid along the ground, tripping four others.

“So, if we are doomed from the start, why are we even here?”  Cain clenched his fist in victory, as the four tripped Slashers didn’t stand up.

“The best troopers humanity had to offer managed to hold this position for twenty-three minutes before they were overrun,” Hiroko shouted as another Slasher fell.  “The elite of the elite held back the endless hordes while the field hospital at the other end of this canyon was evacuated.  Twenty women and men gave their lives to save over a thousand injured and wounded.  If we can hold it for that long we’d be the equals to the best of the best.  Far better than any grade in the academy could ever dream.”

“Sounds great.  How long have we been at it?” Owen asked.

“Six and a half minutes,” Brent shouted.

“We’re screwed,” Kindra said.

Cain pulled out his pad and started tapping away at it.

“That’s sixteen more minutes, genius.”  Cassandra reprimanded Cain.  “Do you really need your pad to do such basic math?”

Cain stuck out his tongue as he put his pad back.  Despite their best efforts, the Shards were getting closer and closer.  They wouldn’t be able to hold out for half the time they needed.

“Focus your fire on their middle leg!  The non-bladed one!”  Tyra shouted out her order.

Without hesitation the troopers shifted from the torso of the tripod to its rear leg.  In half the time they had cut through it.  The tripod flailed as it fell to the ground.  Its mighty blades sliced through nearby Slashers as they tried to continue their charge over the damaged tripod.  The squad quickly started attacking another tripod, forcing it down to the ground, thrashing like the first.

“Now we’ve making some progress,” Erin shouted excitedly.

The squad had reduced the amount of time it took them to bring down the Slashers, but it wasn’t enough.  They slowed the advance of the Shards, but they were still growing slowly closer.

“Sixteen minutes!  Seven more to go!”  Tyra shouted.

The Shards were almost upon them.  The front edge of the horde started lunging toward the defensive line.  One leaped over a collapsing tripod, avoiding its deadly thrashing.  It landed almost on top of Cassandra.  It raised its glinting blade, blood draining down its length.  Brent jumped over the troopers and struck at the pulsing orb in the center of the tripod’s torso with the butt of his rifle.  He struck with so much force the rifle shattered.  The tripod fell backwards, impaled by a second.  A second tripod lunged at Brent.  He raised the remains of his rifle as a pathetic shield.  As the Slasher swung down on him, a large object collided with the tripod, sending it flying back into the mass of Slashers.  As Brent blinked, he realized the projectile had been one of the chairs from the drop ship.  Turning, he found Humphrey whooping in victory behind a crude cannon, Marie already loading another chair into it.

“Tyra!  Hold them back! Cassandra give me a hand!” Brent shouted as an idea hit him.

Brent grabbed the corpse of a Slasher and started dragging it back to Humphrey.  It was impossibly heavy, and he could barely move it.  Cassandra grabbed the battered sphere at the center and helped drag it along.  She moved it with such speed that Brent just let go, as he was hindering more than helping.  He ran back into the drop ship and exchanged the broken remains of his rifle for a new one.

“What are we supposed to do with this thing?” Cassandra shouted as Humphrey launched another chair.

“Never mind that, go grab another one!”  Brent started blasting the connecting joint between one of the blades and the torso.

Marie dropped the chair she was lugging and took a welder to the joint.  Together the two carved off the blade and gingerly loaded it into Humphrey’s launcher.  Mahoney kissed a grenade as he dropped it into a chamber behind the loaded blade.

“I was going to call it the chair cannon,” Humphrey mumbled jokingly.  “So much for that idea.”

“Everyone hit the ground!” Marie shouted before she started on the second blade.

The squad fell to a prone position, not holding their fire for an instant.  Humphrey lined up his target and hit the switch on the improvised cannon.  Mahoney’s grenade exploded in the now sealed chamber, channeling the explosive force forward and launching the Slasher blade with tremendous power.  It carved a long line down the center of the advancing horde.  The struck tripods slid cleanly into two parts.

“Now
that’s
what I’m talking about!” Humphrey mumbled excitedly.

Cassandra dropped off another tripod corpse and quickly ran back to fetch another.  Marie and Brent loaded another blade and got to work on the next fallen tripod.

Between Humphrey’s cannon slicing the tripods and the rest of the squad disabling the survivors, they managed to force the advancing horde back a ways.

“Twenty minutes!  Keep it up!  We’ve got to hold them back for another three minutes!”  Tyra shouted.

The ground started to shake; a deep guttural roar could be heard in the distance.  Surprisingly, it didn’t come from the direction of the Slashers.  Brent shot a glance behind them; a large trail of blistering fire was etching a path through the heavens.

“They are evacuating the field hospital!”  Brent yelled as the ball of fire escaped the atmosphere.

The number of Slashers pouring into the canyon was growing larger; they didn’t like the idea of losing.  Even with Humphrey’s new weapon, the Slashers were closing in fast.  Every thirty seconds another guttural roar let the squad know another hospital ship had escaped.  Brent worked feverishly to keep Humphrey supplied with ammo.  He couldn’t help but be amazed at how many grenades Mahoney had on his person.  As another guttural roar echoed through the canyon, he realized he had lost count of the hospital ships.

Massive mounds of dead Slashers formed huge walls almost as tall as the canyon itself.  Like a massive flood, the Slashers continued to pour down on the troopers.  As another roar sounded through the canyon, a Slasher dodged one of Humphrey’s attacks.  The defensive line of troopers was taken by surprise as it dived under the deadly spinning blade.  They opened fire on the tripod, but it was too late.  The Slasher began its dance of death striking out at the troopers.  As the tripod’s blade was about to rip into Dante’s chest it grinded to a halt, as if all life had been drained from it in a single moment.  The rest of the active Slashers all fell to a dead halt along with it.  Cain stood up and scratched his head.

“Did we lose?” Cain asked.

Rhea started laughing and twisted Cain around.  Together the entire squad watched as a brilliant steak of flame burnt its path to safety.

“We might have lost the battle, but they made it out.”  Rhea patted Cain’s shoulder.  “I think that counts as a victory.”

“Did anyone count how many ships got away?  I hate to admit it, but I lost count.”  Sanderson massaged his aching trigger finger.

Cain quickly pulled out his pad.  After reading it for a moment, he started cheering wildly and dancing poorly.

“Someone’s happy,” Angela said exhaustedly.

“We did it!  I can’t believe it!”  Cain ruffled Angela’s hair.

Instead of anger, Angela’s face took on a look of supreme satisfaction.

“Well?  How long did we last?”  Erin asked.

Without answering, Cain started running back to the drop ship.  As he disappeared inside, a tremendous roar erupted from the hatches.  It was the sound of thousands of troopers cheering.  The squad hesitantly followed Cain into the drop ship.  Cain had opened the door leading back to the anteroom outside the examination room.  Waiting for them were countless troopers whooping and hollering.  They filled the anteroom to capacity and spilled out into the corridors.  As far as could be seen were celebrating troopers.

“Okay, what did you do?” Cassandra asked Cain.

“You thought I was figuring out how long we had to go.”  He grinned victoriously.  “I was really sending a message to every bookie on the station.  I doubt there was a single trooper who missed our performance.”

Brent moved to Angela’s side, noticing her content expression.

“Feels good to work
with
people rather than against them, doesn’t it?” he whispered.

“I think I can see why you defend them so strongly,” she said with obvious satisfaction as she surveyed the squad.  “Even the annoying ones have their . . . good traits.”

As Cain left the examination room, a break in the troopers formed.  Cain was living up the moment, blowing kisses to the female troopers, and flexing his muscles to the male ones.  The squad followed after him, mostly embarrassed beyond words at his behavior.  As they left the anteroom they found the corridors crammed with troopers.  Cain was right; it looked like the entire academy was here.  A large swath of black and red troopers stood in neat rows to their right.  Cain quickly led the squad to their division.

“I see you deserve your reputation,” Valerie said in congratulations.  “Nine ships escaped; a new record.  You all lasted twenty-four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.  That’s forty-nine seconds longer than anyone in the entire Commonwealth has ever lasted in that situation.  Nice work, Brent.”

Tyra’s shoulders sank a little, despite her attempts to conceal the motion.

“I thank you for the compliments, but you’ve got the wrong person.”  Brent pushed Tyra to the front of the squad.  “Tyra is the one to be praised; her leadership got us through that.”

The gathered troopers all let out a massive cheer.  Tyra was overwhelmed and started to fall to the ground.  Ronald quickly rushed to her side and steadied her.  She turned to face Brent.  Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t form words.

“You were the one who told us to focus on their third limb,” he said proudly.  “You were the one who told Humphrey to make his weapon.  Without you we wouldn’t have lasted half as long as we did,” Brent said with a smile.

He took a step back and gracefully bowed to Tyra like the tripods.  Marie, Liz, and Doug quickly followed suit.  The rest of the squad saluted.  Even Angela proudly saluted, probably for the first time in her life.  Most of the gathered troopers mirrored Brent’s bow; the rest saluted.  With a single graceful movement, the SW division saluted in unison.  A tear rolled down Tyra’s cheek as she struggled to keep her composure.

“That’s more than enough seriousness,” Cain shouted as he ended his salute.  “Let’s
party
!”

The troopers cheered in agreement and quickly ushered the entire division down the hallways.

“Where are they taking us?” Angela asked, rubbing her temples.

“The observation deck would be my guess; the only place to house a party this big.”  Cain cackled.

As the huge mass of troopers made their way down the corridors, a single man in gray headed in the opposite direction.  This was something the Administer would definitely want to know about as soon as possible.

“Of all people.  I can’t believe he’d protect a Murdock,” Jack said bitterly.

“You still upset about that?  Isn’t this a good thing?  Isn’t our goal to protect the Commonwealth?”

“You make it sound like I’m over-reacting!  Our goal is to train him, not eliminate him.  She tried to
kill
him, Nathan!”

“Just like the Weavers did.  And the assassin.  I hate to say it, but I think the boy is getting used to that sort of thing.”

“But a Murdock?  Does the boy even know what he’s getting into?”

“You should hear yourself.”  Nathan chuckled to himself.

“What’s so funny?”

“You sound like a father who doesn’t approve of his daughter’s choice in boyfriends.”

“Nathan!”

“Oh relax, you know I’m just having fun.  I don’t know why you are getting so worked up about this.  He survived, didn’t he?”

“Barely.”

“And he assured you it wouldn’t happen again?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t know the Murdocks like I do.  If she is after him, this will only be the tip of the spear.”

“And if you are wrong, you are getting worked up over nothing.  I took the liberty of talking to Miss Murdock myself short after the incident, and I’m convinced she isn’t the stone cold killer you seem to think she is.  She was practically in tears when I first told her the boy would make a full recovery.”

“Probably upset her plan failed.”

“I might not be a Weaver, but even I can tell that wasn’t the case.  Maybe she did try to kill Brent, but
he
forgave her.  Can’t you at least give her the benefit of the doubt?”

“I suppose you are right.  It’s just that . . .”

“Weaver Davis!”  A man in gray burst into the room panting.

“Report.”

“Brent passed . . . classes abandoned . . . bookies transmitting.”  The man panted more than spoke.

“Slow down man,” Nathan said calmingly.  “Take a breath.  Relax and tell us
slowly
.”