once the shields were down, and our grenadiers had plenty of rockets. If the shields were down, all we would have to do was hold out for a few more minutes, then the reinforcements would arrive—wave upon wave of soldiers.
“Navy SEALs have touched down on Mogat territory,” the colonel said. He spoke in a cheerful tone that radiated his utter ignorance about the fight. He was probably tucked away safely in a transport, a million miles from the action.
“Speck,” I hissed. “They’ve only specking touched down?” I asked. They’d barely begun their damn mission. “That’s great, sir,” I said. “Why don’t you call me when they shut down the specking power.”
“Watch yourself, Sergeant,” the colonel said. For a moment, it occurred to me that the spirit of the late Colonel Grayson had returned to haunt me through that fool.
“Sorry, sir,” I said.
“You and I are going to have a conversation when this is over, Harris,” he said over an open frequency that every Marine on the planet could hear.
Several Mogat survivors fired at us from inside the next car. I took cover behind the metal walls of a storage locker and radioed back to Philips. “Can you go up top and flank these guys?” I asked.
“I’ve got ’em, sir,” Philips answered. He called me “sir.” Enlisted men never called other enlisted men “sir.” That kind of respect was reserved for officers. By reprimanding me, the colonel had won me respect that I could never have earned on my own.
Bullets clattered against the metal and ricocheted around the compartment. The firing stopped for a moment. I looked around the locker and fired shots through the open door. I had nothing to shoot at, but I wanted to distract the Mogats on the other side. It did not work. When no one fired back, I ventured for a closer look and peered into the next car. I saw a Mogat trying to shoot through the windows along the top of the train. He must have been shooting at Philips, but his bullets would never get through the shielded glass.
One of the Mogats spotted me. I rolled back behind my cover as he shot. Then I heard the creaking of metal. I rolled out and fired at the man as he tried to climb onto my side of the door. I missed, and he ducked back for safety.
“How’s it going, Philips?” I called over the interLink.
“Keep your panties on, Master Sarge,” Philips sneered back. So much for respect.
“They’re expecting you,” I said, warning Philips.
“I know…I know.”
The gunfire continued, but now it was farther away. I rolled for a quick look, shot the Mogat who was supposed to be covering me, then rushed the door of the next compartment, where I got the drop on one of the three men tracking Philips. I shot him. As the other two turned on me, Philips shot them.
“Harris, are you there?” Thomer called in over the interLink.
“I’m here,” I said. “What’s going on out there?”
“They’re closing in on us,” Thomer said.
“Did the other platoon make it out?” I asked.
“Some of them,” Thomer said. “Those tanks caught a bunch of them in the open. Half of them did not make it across.”
“Squad counts,” I ordered.
“I’m down to nine,” Thomer said. One of those nine would be Philips, who was in here with me.
“Seven,” said Evans.
“Five,” said Greer.
Of my original forty-two men, I now had twenty-three remaining, including myself. If I did not find some way to get my men out of there, the roll call might only find two.
“Hold on,” I called over the platoon-wide band. “I’ll find a way to draw some of the heat off you. Just hold on.”
“You want to draw some heat?” Philips asked. “You should see what we have in here.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The Mogats had only launched the first wave of their counterattack and already our invasion was unraveling around us. I wondered how long the platoons guarding the traffic ramps would hold out. I wondered if the Mogats would send gunships across the planet to attack our transports. Probably not. Why should they? Their Navy ruled orbital space. If they waited for us to surrender, they could take our transports intact.
Everything hinged on the SEALs. Our invasion was meant to draw Mogat forces away. Well, we’d pulled that one off. If the SEALs could just accomplish their objectives, some of us might survive.
“Harris, over here,” Philips called excitedly, as I came across the car.
Along the left wall, which had become the floor when the whole train tipped on its side, lay stacks of clear canisters filled with some sort of swirling brown gas. The canisters were strapped down tight. Nothing short of a grenade would have shattered them; the Mogats did not take any chances with this cargo.
Stacks of a different sort hung from the top of the train—canisters filled with gray, glittering gas. Seeing these lethal weapons, I could not help but smile.
“What is this shit?” Philips asked.
“The brown ones are distilled shit gas,” I said, borrowing that briefing officer’s parlance. “This is the most corrosive stuff you’ll ever see. Eats anything soft—skin, wires, rubber.”
I pointed to the canisters on the other wall. They were filled with compressed silver gas. They looked like they might have contained mercury. “You know what this is, right?” I asked.
Philips shook his head.
“That’s noxium gas. You’ve heard of noxium gas before?” I said.
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of it.” Terrorists favored noxium because it was cheap and scary. It bored into people and turned them to jelly, then dispersed into the air. You could shoot it into a building, kill everyone inside, then enter the building yourself five minutes later. The air would be clean.
“How are you holding up out there?” I called on a frequency that reached only my squad leaders.
“Rumsfelds,” Evans said. “They’ve got specking Rumsfelds!”
Of course there were Rumsfelds. I should have known there would be Rumsfelds. That explained the gas canisters. Rumsfelds were designed to spew supercharged gas. They also packed the standard machine guns and cannons.
Despite all the weapons and armor, the Rumsfeld was obsolete before it rolled off the assembly line. It moved too slowly for practical use in battle. Other battlefield units could outmaneuver Rumsfelds and ultimately cut them down. The government had labeled them obsolete thirty years ago, but they should have been discontinued long before that.
“Are they on you?” I asked. I worked as I spoke, hoping to find the guns that foot soldiers used to shoot gas canisters. I found a rack of compressed-gas shooters near the door. These were breech-loading rifles with barrels as thick as baseball bats.
“Bearing down,” Evans said.
“Just hold on,” I said. “Help is on the way.”
Rumsfelds had a closed circulation system with filters that could weed out noxium gas—a biogas that quickly evaporated into the environment. I did not think the tanks’ filters would hold up against distilled shit gas, however. That long-lasting corrosive would eat through the filters. Shit gas hung around for hours as it seeped into the ground. The Rumsfelds would probably fire the canisters in one direction, then drive off in the other.
I pulled off my helmet and placed four canisters of shit gas into it. The canisters were about three inches tall and two inches in diameter. I removed three of the other canisters as well, the ones with the gray-colored gas.
Philips removed his helmet and did the same.
Strapping a shooter to my back, I climbed to the top of the train. Up ahead, I saw at least twenty Targs facing
