Van Dop saw at least one koob drop from an errant shot in the back of the head. And then the team medic raced past him, rushing to reach Hopper where he lay writhing on the ground, bloody hands clasped around his neck.
The medic slid to his knees, moving hands to his carry bag when a koob round smacked into his helmet, knocking it off and causing the medic to tumble over sideways.
“Sket!” Van Dop shouted. He realized that Hopper, who was still struggling out there as the koobs advanced, wasn’t going to get himself to safety. Realized his men were doing what they needed to be doing. A bullet skipped along the paved road at Van Dop’s feet, not touching the ATL as he stood there. He needed to move. Either find cover or go up and see about getting Hopper back into the lines. He was the only one who could do it.
“Sket,” Van Dop said again with the quiet realization that he was about to run toward the advancing hostiles. There were a lot of Pashta’k koobs.
Van Dop started to run for the wounded team leader.
Blaster bolts sizzled over his head. Bullets snapped. The report of those new rifles that were now being used against him barked, their noise seeming to drown out nearly everything else.
It seemed so inevitable that Van Dop would be hit that he expected it. Each step feeling as though something was going to slam into him and drop him, just like it had the medic. He tensed his muscles even as he ran, as if the incoming fire would somehow not be able to tear inside of him if only he cramped and tightened himself.
The expected hit didn’t come, and Van Dop found himself at Hopper’s side. The team leader was pale, his blouse drenched with blood at the neck and shoulder. Hopper was still holding his neck, still seemed strong. But his face was ashen and his eyes, which stared fixedly upward, seemed distant.
Van Dop grabbed Hopper by his harness. “Hopper. Stay with me. Gonna get you out of here.”
Bullets sang their disruptive song overhead. Blaster fire sizzled. There were indeed many koobs, but they were firing wildly from the hip as they moved. That was how they fought the zhee. Just closed in until they couldn’t miss. Their weapons likely weren’t even zeroed.
So hurry up and get out of here, Van Dop told himself.
He stole a glance at the medic, just to confirm what he already knew. The man was dead. A hole in his head so large that it had to have come from a rifle that, in hindsight, should not have been given to the locals.
Van Dop stood, again feeling the expectation of getting hit. And then he ran, pulling Hopper whose feet kicked and writhed like some kind of ancient sled dog mushing through snow. The main thing Van Dop didn’t want to do was lose his grip on the harness. He didn’t want to have to stop and go back, because he was sure that doing so would necessitate the end of his luck.
The bullets and blaster bolts weren’t hitting him. Someone up there, Oba—whoever—was letting him return to the lines.
But only if he didn’t do something to mess it up. Van Dop knew the way these things worked. It’s a thin line between a once-in-a-lifetime moment and a moment that ends your life. He’d seen it countless times before on diverse worlds. Through battles that he fought in. That he remembered. The number of which he could count, but had stopped a long time ago. Because keeping track of the number of times he’d escaped death… that felt like taunting death.
Death never likes being mocked.
A wet gurgle came from Hopper.
Van Dop was passing Team Nilo mercs now. Felt that more blaster fire was zipping past him in the opposite direction than chasing him now. He looked down. Hopper’s eyes flitted over to him. That seemed good. The recognition.
A merc—former Legion, Van Dop thought—ran up and grabbed the other side of Hopper’s harness and pulled. They moved to the rear. Van Dop had a mind to get Hopper to one of the sleds from the convoy because it could move if it needed to. That was his rationale for passing the museum’s front doors where mercs used the sandstone walls enclosing the steps for cover. Inside the museum any wounded should be safe, but if these koobs were to take the museum—if that was what they were after—it would mean they’d take Hopper and any other casualties with it. If casualties were on a sled… at least there’d be a chance they could speed out alive and get medical attention.
“Last sled in column is our CCP!” Van Dop yelled, looking to the merc who helped carry the load.
He nodded as a bullet snapped over both their heads, causing each man to duck his head reflexively.
The wall on the museum’s steps exploded as one of the rounds fired from the new rifles punched right through the sandstone, sending chunks of masonry into the body armor and faces of the mercs who had been using it for cover. One of the operators yelled in pain, clutching his eyes, blood seeping between the fingers of his gloves as his buddy called for a medic.
Ahead, a wounded merc was being pulled across the street by two buddies. The roof’s defenders and the fixed repeating blasters on the sleds were blazing, but they were facing some serious numbers. Classic Kublaren battle strategy. Overwhelm and rout. The koobs would gladly take two black eyes for a
