“Pikkek,” I call into the comm, as we zip along the main street that leads to where the battle formations are set and the fight is happening in earnest.
“Mooktah ya?”
“I need you up here, now. Break engagement.”
There’s a bewildered and half-bellowing croak. “No run from Pashta’k!”
“Not running. Attacking in a new direction. I need your team to help punch through the lines at the museum.”
I don’t get an audible confirmation from Pikkek, but Abers fills me in on what he’s seeing from facing the opposite direction. “Our koobs are gettin’ on ’pulsors. What’s the play, Carter?”
As we push down the main thoroughfare, the seeds of a plan form in my head. Of the three forces—Black Leaf, Repub Army, and Pashta’k koobs—only Team Nilo appears organized. If the army rolled in with a battle plan, it fell apart once contact was made. But then, anyone still serving in the Republic army on a place like Kublar is probably more politician than soldier. Someone holding out hope that the old order would find its way back to power. The type whose well-being depends solely on table scraps from the galaxy’s powerful and elite.
What the mercs are up against are superior numbers that could have already won the fight if they had been willing to take the heavy losses necessary to overrun the museum and put an end to the fight. But they’re battling defensively. Trying to shoot their way to victory when all it would take is a simple charge.
A charge.
That’s what we’re gonna do. Not a blind rush at the thickest portions of the line, but an old school cavalry charge from antiquity. Fitting for a fight in front of a museum. We’ll move through the enemy lines as they’re occupied with their objective, hit them hard, and then be on to the next group before they can react.
Best case, we cause enough confusion to get them to break. Worst case…
Well, let’s not think about that right now.
I relay the plan to the team as we close the remaining distance on the long thoroughfare that runs in front of the museum. That no one answers tells me that not only is my plan understood, but it’s viewed as crazy. Suicidal even.
Maybe so.
We’ll find out soon.
48
Our ATVs, weighed down with drivers, weigh over six hundred pounds. Which means when they drive over the top of the fleeing koobs, they’re getting pummeled by that much repulsor force. Better than being flattened by a tank, but I can’t imagine it feels good. Some of the koobs get up when we pass by, some of them don’t. We’re working hard to make sure the “don’t” column contains the most tallies.
The Team Nilo defenders do everything short of giving us a cheer on arrival. They’ve been coordinating their defensive fire to allow us to crash through the ranks of koobs, now embedded and pressing their attack as if sieging the museum. Trying to gain the victory through attrition, one Black Leaf casualty at a time.
We’re making a difference, though. And it’s above my paygrade to call this one of Oba’s miracles or not, but it feels miraculous that we haven’t taken any casualties yet. I chalk it up to the speed and precision my operators are working in and the chaotic smokescreen that is combat. It’s clear to me that the koobs and their R-A supporters weren’t anticipating an attack. Their flanks were exposed and unguarded. Tactical failures of the most basic variety. The stuff you don’t need to be an officer to know to do because it’s as simple as living anyplace where life is hard and rough: Watch your back.
If there’s a flaw in my plan, it’s that I’m still driving. While I’m using my vehicle as a weapon, when we get up close in the midst of a pocket of attacking koobs, all I can do is swing Mel S. from my back and operate the shotgun with one arm. It tears through the surprised koobs, who usually are only just bringing their heads up from behind cover by the time we arrive. But it’s slower going than I would like. I know how much more damage I could contribute if I had both hands.
Lana is doing her able best, emptying her subcompact with each engagement and reloading on the fly. Easy is in the same predicament as me, and Abers has swapped out his N-18 for an N-4. Pikkek’s koobs are fighting with a ferocity that has me impressed. They’re making holes with their slug throwers at range and many of them are swinging those obscenely sharp stone swords and tomahawks once they’re in close.
I’d say that the melee is what’s causing the Pashta’k lines to fold and turn, but the credit for that truly goes to Lash. He’s spitting from his SAB, still soft-mounted to the handlebars of his ATV. He roars in like a space fighter on a strafing run, fearlessly charging the enemy and watching them break and clear a path for him to speed through. It’s crazy. The big guy bull-rushes and I’m not sure they even shoot back. They’re reacting like a demon from their prehistory—I’m assuming koobs believe in demons here—has entered the battle to tilt it out of their favor like we’re all living a myth.
“Keep it up,” I shout into the comm, barely coherent.
The frenzy of battle, the thrill of fighting through odds, has overtaken my admittedly rusty Legion training. I can feel it in all of us. We’re slipping into a place where the fighting takes control. The type where you keep shooting and yelling even after the foe has been vanquished. Where you squeeze the trigger until the charge
