And then our luck changes. No, not changes. The gods of war have demanded a sacrifice in exchange for the victory we’ve been given. And they’ve chosen their offering.
“Sket! Easy’s hit!”
I have only a vague sense of where Easy and Abers are. Lash I can find thanks to the continual blaze of his SAB. Pikkek’s war croaks rise above the loudest battle din. I know they’re nearby, but I can’t find them.
I need to get Lana to them.
“Lana, I can’t see ’em!”
“Museum steps,” she shouts.
Easy’s ATV is slowly floating toward the front stairs of the museum. I can see Easy slumped over the front of the handlebars, Abers holding onto him, keeping him from falling off. I can also see we’ve disrupted the koob lines so much that we have a straight shot to the museum, fully capable of connecting with Hopper’s forces.
“Push to the museum,” I call out to my team. “Let’s get these guys home.”
Pikkek bellows something in Koob that I have no ability to translate. Pretty sure it means he’s not going to stop fighting as mobile cav.
“Copy,” says Lash. “Take care of Easy. But these koobs’ll break if we keep this up. Gonna stay at it.”
Okay. So I guess the chain of command thing is optional at this point.
But Lash is a capable operator. And while I still don’t know exactly what he did before joining Team Nilo, he’s proven again and again to be an elite warrior.
“Copy that,” I say. “But if I need you at the museum…”
“I’ll be ready.”
We’re at the museum steps by the time the conversation ends. Lana jumps from the ATV and unslings her medical bag. She runs up to Easy while I take up a firing position, looking to provide security.
It’s disorganized and random now. There are dead koobs and dead R-A soldiers littering the streets. Those still alive are nearly crashing into each other, running this way and that. Some caught up in the panic of an unfolding rout, others attempting to rally. All the while, Lash rips up and down the avenue with his SAB like a drag racer and the repeating blasters from the roof hammer those caught in the open.
I find a few opportunities to shoot, switching from Mel S. to Mel R. I’m keeping an ear open to try to glean what I can about Easy, resisting the urge to pepper Lana with questions as she works. Easy needs her attention more than I need her assurance that the little hullbuster will be all right.
A Republic Army soldier belly crawls through the dead. He’s unarmed, so I let him be, keeping an eye on him as I drop a koob firing one of those hybrid blasters. The soldier crawls over to the corpse of a dead koob, elbows wet with their fishy yellow blood. I see him reach for a rifle and I take my shot. The blaster bolt burns through the kid’s helmet and his head drops face-first into the pooling koob blood, red mixing with yellow. Death atop death.
And more death.
“Not me, man! Check on Easy!”
I turn my head and see Abers seated on the steps and leaning against the powered-down ATV. He’s yelling as Lana checks him out. Easy is still slumped over the repulsor he was driving, clearly gone.
“Easy wasn’t the only one hit,” Lana says, struggling to unfasten Abers’s vest. “Stay still or I’ll have Lash hold you down.”
More targets appear, drawing my attention away from the drama unfolding just a few feet away from me. But Lash was right about continuing to seed chaos in the battlefield; the koob and R-A assault is broken and any pretense of rallying is gone. They were undisciplined and couldn’t withstand the heat of the battle once what was a clear victory was ripped away from their grasp.
Even in defeat, an enemy is dangerous. While most of Pashta’k koobs are running, some are lingering, refusing to show us their backs. Taking quick shots with those rifles as they do that loping walk-hop. It’s this type I’m looking for, trying to dust them before they can dust any more of us. As the streets begin to clear like tidewaters pulling away from a beach, the carnage left in the retreating force’s wake is evident.
Koob blood runs along gutters and into storm drains designed to handle the coastal rains that accompany the planet’s brief wet season. But it isn’t all yellow. The red blood of deceased Team Nilo guys and hapless Repub Army soldiers swirls in its midst. I’ve seen worse battlefields by far. But the aftermath of anything—be it a roadside bomb, targeted orbital strike, or even a simple ambush—is never pretty to look at.
“Carter, I need your help,” grunts Lana.
She’s struggling with Abers, who’s holding her by the wrists as if she were coming at him with a vibroknife in each hand. Only all she has is a skinpack and a pair of laser sheers.
“Help, Easy,” Abers mumbles, his N-18 propped against the steps.
Lana has no hope of overpowering the former Marine and I’m not sure she’s even trying. It looks more like she’s keeping tense to make sure Abers can’t do anything to her arms, because he’s somewhere else.
I bound over and across the steps, hoping the guys on the roof and the rest of the firing positions keep me covered until the museum is fully secure.
“Abers, buddy,” I say, “let Lana help you. You gotta let her take a look, man.”
I take hold of his wrist, gently. The touch seems to trigger something because he lets one of Lana’s arms free. He looks up at me imploringly and pleads his case.
“Easy’s hit.”
“I know. So are you.”
“Not bad. It’s not bad. But Easy,” he nods his head at the dead Marine, still slumped over the ATV, “he’s messed up.”
That’s an understatement. He’s got a hole blown right through him. His legs are soaking wet with blood, which has dripped down
