Trident Fury (The Kurgan War Book 3) (13 page)

“Yes, I do. Can you be ready to go first thing tomorrow morning?”

Mercier nodded.

“Good. I’ll see you both at eight o’clock sharp to begin training. If there’s nothing else we need to discuss, I’ll leave you two to get on with your work.” Sheridan turned and left the hangar. He knew that Parata was just pushing his buttons to see if he could get a rise out of him. Parata could be a pain in the ass when he wanted to be, but he was also the best pilot in the Sixth Fleet. Sheridan felt himself lucky to have Parata and Mercier along as part of the team. It was one less thing among dozens of others floating around in his mind to worry about.

Light-years away, half the way to the prison planet, Colonel Wright gently applied power to his ship’s thrusters and flew his craft out of the open hangar doors into space. For as far as he could see, an asteroid field composed of tens of millions of rocks and boulders, some as tiny as a pebble and some kilometers in width, filled the heavens. The transport ship had come out of her jump behind a small moon and was using it to hide behind. They waited an hour to make sure that they had not been spotted before launching the two deep reconnaissance vessels.
 

Wright looked down at his instrument panel and made sure that everything was working as it should. “Okay, Miss Eskola, how are things back there?”

“Sir, my nav computer is fully operational. I can confirm that my calculations are correct and we are ready to make our jump.”

“Sounds good.” Wright looked out the glass window in his cockpit at the other ship about to make the jump. He saw the pilot wave over that he was also good to go. As they were in enemy space, both ships were operating on comms silence.
 

“I’m ready when you are, sir,” said Eskola.

Wright took one last look up at their support ship. He had made dozens of combat jumps since the war had begun. Yet none of them had seemed as important as the one he was about to make. He reached over and set a hand on a picture of his girlfriend back home on Earth. It was a good luck ritual that he had done on every mission. It hadn’t always worked perfectly, but he figured the odds were still on his side. He knew that while they were gone their support ship would be deploying another satellite to act as a relay station for the information that would be streaming back from Klatt once the two satellites there went operational. Wright keyed his mic. “Okay, Miss Eskola, we’re in your hands now.”

“Roger that, sir.” She began her countdown. “Five-four-three-two-one.”

Impenetrable darkness engulfed the two ships the moment they jumped beyond the speed of light and began their twenty-four-hour flight to Klatt.

Crap
, thought Wright as his bladder reminded him that he shouldn’t have had three cups of coffee before climbing into his cockpit. He tried to get comfortable in his seat. The only consolation he could think of was that he hadn’t forgotten to put on his diaper. He shook his head. It was going to be a long couple of days.

Chapter 14

Sheridan and Cole grabbed some food before making their way to the back of the dining room. They took a seat at a table far away from anyone else so they could talk.
 

“Anything new from Captain Killam?” Cole asked.
 

Sheridan shook his head. “Not since the last mission brief this morning. Looks like the task force will be built of a slimmed down carrier battle group with a couple of battalions of Marines to act as security and to help evacuate the POWs as fast as humanly possible. The longer we spend in Kurgan space, the greater the chance of them counterattacking.”

“What do you think of the people we were given?”

“They’re eager enough. Like my father said, we go with what we have, or they would have sent a Special Forces team to do this assignment.”

Cole scrunched up his face. “Special Forces . . . bah! Just more prancing prima donnas like the parade ground soldiers in the First Div. I’d rather go with what we have than be forced to rely on people living off a reputation earned a century ago.”

Sheridan set his knife and fork down. “I take it by that little tirade that you don’t like them.”

“Sir, a few years back we had some working with us during an armed stand-off with some disgruntled miners on a mining colony, and they only made things worse. Rather than just simply wait the miners out, they launched a raid, unbeknown to the rest of us, to capture the leader of the rebels. It was a complete and utter disaster. When their extraction transport developed engine problems, we had to go in and rescue a team of special operators trapped in a building that was surrounded by a couple hundred really pissed off miners. When the dust settled that night, we had lost six men, and the miners considerably more. It left a sour taste in my mouth that has never gone away.”

“Perhaps they’ve changed. I’m sure they had to answer to the chain of command for what went wrong.”

Cole chuckled. “You can put lipstick on a pig, but when all it is said and done, you’re still left with a pig. Sorry, sir, but I don’t trust them and never will.”

“Good to know,” said Sheridan, wishing he had never mentioned them at all.
 

A female voice announced over the ship’s intercom, “Captain Sheridan, Master Sergeant Cole, please report to the briefing room immediately.”

Sheridan glanced down at his watch. They weren’t scheduled to meet with anyone. “I wonder what that’s all about?”

“I dunno,” replied Cole standing up. “I suspect that the good Captain Killam wants to talk to us about something.”

“This isn’t fair. I didn’t get to eat my spaghetti. It’s my favorite.”

“Duty calls. You can always grab a bite to eat later if you’re still hungry.”

A couple of minutes later, they walked into the briefing room. Sheridan saw right away that the people there had not taken a moment’s rest since they began planning the operation. Half-drunk cups of coffee and junk food wrappers were everywhere. Captain Killam had a couple days’ growth on his face and looked as if he could sleep for a week. By his side was Lieutenant Colonel Kimura. They appeared to be deep in discussion.

“Sir, you wanted to see us?” said Sheridan to Killam.

“Ah, good, you’re here. That didn’t take long.”

“We were in the mess hall.”

Killam placed a hand on Sheridan’s arm. “Let’s all find a quiet corner so I can tell you what’s up.” They moved to the back of the crowded room. Killam looked over and asked a couple of people standing nearby to take a five-minute break.
 

Sheridan could see that something was on the operation officer’s mind.

“Captain, if I were to ask you, how soon can you depart?” asked Killam.

Sheridan looked over at Cole. “No more than a couple of hours. I think we’re just waiting on a few things from the quartermaster.”

“Like what?” queried Kimura.

“The night vision gear we received was damaged, and I still want an armorer to check the new arrivals’ weapons before we depart. I wouldn’t want them to fail in the middle of a firefight,” explained Cole.

“Not a problem. I’ll have the equipment you need flown over to the
Colossus
within the hour, along with an armorer.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“Captain Killam, I take it that you want us to go early?” said Sheridan.

Killam nodded.

Kimura explained the situation. “Gents, Colonel White, the ground assault force commander for the mission, is concerned that forty-eight hours on the ground won’t be enough. He’s asked that you go as soon as possible.”

Sheridan looked down at his watch. “If everything runs smoothly, I think we can leave three hours from now.”

Kimura looked relieved. “That’s excellent news. I’ll pass that along to Colonel White. I know he’ll be happy to hear that.”

Sheridan said to Killam. “Sir, the original plan was for the shuttle to be carried on board another ship with the rest of the task force to the halfway point. Once there, we were to fly the rest of the way there on our own. We can’t possibly make it to Klatt from here on our own power.”

“The plan’s changed. A modified transport ship will be here soon enough to take your shuttle into Kurgan space. You’ll be using the same route as Colonel Wright and his team. By the time you reach the asteroid field, you should be receiving feed from the satellites currently being positioned in orbit by Wright. Hopefully, it’ll help you choose your landing site on Klatt.”

“Once you’re there, you can relay information back to the fleet via the satellites,” explained Kimura.

“I guess we had best get our butts in gear if we’re to shove off in a few hours,” said Cole.

Sheridan asked, “Gents, do either of you have anything else for us?”

“No, except to say good luck,” replied Killam offering his hand.

“Thanks, sir,” said Sheridan, shaking Killam’s hand.

In the hallway, Cole looked over at his friend and shook his head. “Sir, I didn’t want to say anything in front of the two senior officers, but changing the plan on the fly, as complicated as this one is, is a good way for things to cock up. We haven’t had the time to see what our people can do under stress. This is unlike anything we have ever done before. A couple more days would have been ideal.”

“I agree but what can we do? If I were in Colonel White’s shoes, I’d also be screaming for intelligence on the enemy dispositions.”

“Oh well, once more unto the breach. I guess I’ll go round up the rest of the Marines while you track down the flight crew. Knowing those two, they’ll be in the officer’s mess already.”

“God, I hope they haven’t started drinking. We need them sober and fully alert.”

“I guess you had best find out.”

The last thing Sheridan needed right now was a couple of drunks. If they were in the mess, there was going to be hell to pay.

Chapter 15

“Get out of bed and form up in two ranks out here,” hollered Travis as he flicked on the lights in the cavern.
 

Tarina groaned, rolled over, and sat up. The bright lights bothered her. She reached up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Don’t make me angry,” added Travis to make the prisoners move faster.

After slipping her clogs on her feet, Tarina joined the rest of the prisoners as they shuffled over and formed up in front of Travis. She had no idea what time it was, but her tired and aching body told her that she hadn’t slept enough to recover from yesterday’s work.

“What’s up?” whispered Wendy.

Tarina shook her head. She was as mystified as her friend as to what was going on.

“Now stand up straight as if you maggots were on parade,” ordered Travis.

Tarina and everyone else tried their best to comply. Most were just too exhausted and hurt to raise their heads up.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tarina spotted a Kurgan officer walk out of the dark and move over beside Travis. The Kurgan had tattoos on one side of his face. She grew curious, having never seen any markings whatsoever on a Kurgan’s face before.

“Now don’t any of you move while Colonel Kuhr inspects you,” barked Travis. Slowly, the colonel and Travis walked down the rows of prisoners checking each one individually.

When the colonel came to Tarina, he stopped and looked down at her. She felt her skin crawl as he lowered his head to look into her eyes. He said something to Travis that she did not understand.
 

“She’s an officer and a pilot,” said Travis to the Kurgan.

Tarina’s heart skipped a beat when the colonel reached down and squeezed her arm tightly.
 

The Kurgan again spoke to Travis. “Yes, sir, she’s a hard worker,” he replied. “She and a bunch of the prisoners haven’t been here that long. They’re still healthy and fit. Shall I write her name in the book?”

Colonel Kuhr studied Tarina’s face for a few seconds before nodding. Travis dug out a small book and wrote Tarina’s name inside of it.
 

She had no idea what had just happened and was not sure that she wanted to know either. For several minutes, the colonel went up and down the two ranks of tired prisoners. More names were added to the growing list. Wendy’s name, however, was not written down. Tarina overheard Travis saying that Kuhr found human redheads abnormal and wanted nothing to do with Wendy. Finally, the inspection was over, leaving the prisoners of Black-Three with more questions than answers.

“All right, you can go back to your beds and get another hour’s sleep if you want,” said Travis to the group. “Those of you whose name I wrote down in my book had best take special care and not injure themselves in any way over the next few days. If you do, you’ll have to answer to the colonel.”

“Master Travis, could you tell us what that was all about?” asked Angela. She had her head bowed so their jailer would not take offense.

“Let’s just say that the ten of you whose names I wrote down will be going on a little trip soon and none of you will be coming back.” With that, he put his book away and laughed to himself as he walked off into the dark.

“I saw him put your name in his book,” Wendy said to Tarina. “Something bad is about to happen, I can feel it.”