“First Sergeant, you need to pull back to Hauser. I’ll go get them.”
He looked at me with a look of pure hatred. I’d committed the mortal sin of indicating I was better suited to do what needed to be done. That I was young and a warrior. And that he was just an old man.
“Sorry, First Sergeant. Company needs you more.”
He hissed and swore.
“Nah, they don’t, Sergeant Orion. I need ’em more’n they need me. But you’re right, son. I’ll get Chungo to drop IR smoke all over that area and you go pull ’em back. Dodgeistan no longer seems all that interesting.”
Then he turned and bellowed to both machine-gun teams and the remaining riflemen. Ignoring the dead, for these problems were no longer theirs.
“We are leaving, Strange! Pull back by twos now and get a hustle on. This show’s about to be over.”
Chungo dropped smoke rounds that would make it easier for me, and harder for enemy targeting. Thirty seconds later I raced out through the fog to get Hannibal and his team back to our lines.
And to get the package.
The package that would ruin all our plans if she was right. A package I hadn’t told anyone about. If she was right it would save the galaxy. And Strange would be broke.
I reached Amarcus Hannibal, sliding into the bunker. Hannibal looked like a bloody mess. His Frankenstein patchwork face was even more ruined by viscous blood. He was crouched down and holding his shorty, pointing where he wanted fire. As I assessed the fight from his perspective it was clear he was keeping the Ultras back and off the company. Without this team we would have been flanked and murdered easily. All his men were hit.
He was a great soldier. A lousy human being.
“First Sergeant says pull back, Amarcus. We got cover from the smoke rounds and the drop is on orbit clearing the way. Time to move.”
Hannibal looked at me, clearly surprised to see me here. Some light going on in his eyes about the reality of the situation. He nodded to his men, made them grab the heavy gun, and then the four of us were running back to the wounded crawler. Chungo had leapt down off the top, ahead of us, and now the chubby indirect specialist was waddle-running for all he was worth to reach Hauser at the cover behind the ore hauler.
I let myself believe for a second that we were almost out of this.
Overhead Chief Cook’s hijacked drop came in hard, both guns rattling lead in every direction. Another rocket streaked up, bounced off the hull, and exploded. The ship went sideways as one engine went offline. Chief Cook fought the spin and had it under control a second later, its engine bellowing like a wounded prehistoric beast.
“We’re hit,” he grunted over the channel. “Gotta pull out now or we won’t make it to the rendezvous. Sorry, Strange!”
I heard the captain over the comm.
“Cleared to depart, Voodoo Three. We have the transport under control. Loading finals and waiting on stragglers. Liftoff in the next five.”
Amarcus sent the two men toward Hauser. Then he dashed into the wreck of the crawler.
“Orion!” he shouted, like he’d just remembered a secret. “We got the high-bit mem in a clamshell from the bank. This stuff is worth millions. Help me.”
And now, later, I realize he was smart to stack his shorty near the entrance to the burning crawler before going in to get the high-bit mem that would make the company rich if the Monarch didn’t use her doomsday delete-all-the-currency weapon. Signaling to me he was unarmed. Deceiving me.
I ran after him. I would tell him the mem was worthless. Once the Seeker, she, the Monarch, got that package he had, she was going to do something that would make everything, all that mem, meaningless. All across the galaxy.
If you believe that, Amarcus.
If you believe. That.
Do you believe it, Sergeant Orion?
Believe things can be different? Believe in freedom.
But it was too late. I was just inside the crawler when he jumped me. Smashing me in the back of the head with something heavy. I never saw what. I broke out into a cold sweat as I stumbled forward knowing with cold-water clarity Amarcus had chosen this moment for his revenge. To murder me. That I was about to die after coming through all this. To be free of me so he could take over the company someday. Make it something petty and small. A band of thugs terrorizing his own perfect little fiefdom on the edge somewhere. An homage unto his own brutal self.
Which is why I’d always known I’d need to kill him fast when the time came.
Someday.
If just to save the company.
If just to save even myself.
I let go of the shotgun because I couldn’t get it around and on him in those tight smoky quarters of the burning crawler. He was coming after me now with whatever he was going to crush my skull with a second later.
I pivoted, index finger going into my karambit’s ring as natural as the thousand or more times I’d done it. Practicing for this moment. Knowing it was coming all along.
I got my feet under me.
If that hadn’t happened nothing would’ve in what came next. I dragged the pop-knife, felt the blade lock open. Wrapped my hand around the hilt and threw a savage swipe at his throat. Low and away from the carotid arteries as I then dragged it up across one of them.
He was dead then.
Maybe he knew it. But he kept coming, slamming into me and bleeding more than he already had been. I gave two steps as my right knife-holding hand drew back over my left shoulder. Then jackhammered into his xiphoid process just beneath his plate carrier.
To save me.
To save the company.
Twice was enough. The third time I hit plate and broke the blade because my hands were shaking so bad and the funnel was consuming my vision. Like I was gonna
