Ep.#14 - "The Weak and the Innocent" (The Frontiers Saga) by Ryk Brown Page A

generators during a snap jump.”
    “So maybe it’s not such a crazy idea?”
    “No, it’s still crazy,” the commander insisted. “Just not impossible, assuming the jump drive is still working, and there is still enough energy in the buffers, and all the emitters are still…”
    “None of which we’ll know until you tap into the systems with that thing,” the captain said.
    “Yes, sir,” Commander Eckert agreed.
    * * *
    Commander Telles sprinted the last few meters to cover. As he ran, he jumped up and spun around, falling back first against the wall of the building on the far corner, directly below the window he had shot up a moment earlier. There was a deafening sound in the distance, like a steady series of sonic booms and the screech of burning atmosphere. It was followed by a roaring thunder that shook the streets and knocked already loosened pieces off the walls of the buildings. Telles leaned his head out just enough to peek down the street to the west. A torrent of rail gun slugs, superheated to a brilliant yellow-orange by the thick atmosphere of Kohara, pounded the Jung headquarters three kilometers away. He saw a series of flashes, then a cloud of smoke and dust that quickly rose from the target as the Aurora’s massive quad-barreled rail guns pounded it out of existence. Two more surface targets in the distance were also lit up, this time by the Aurora’s two plasma cannons that had replaced her other two quad rail guns donated to the Celestia. Red-orange bolts of plasma streaked down from above, slamming into target after target as the Aurora’s tactical officer fired at every Jung position fed to him by the men inside the command bunker.
    Commander Telles dashed back out into the street, this time heading south toward the distant thunder of the Aurora’s rail guns. He fired as he ran, each shot striking an enemy soldier. Twisting and ducking incoming fire, he zigzagged his way to his next point of cover on the far side of the street, twenty meters south of the command bunker. He leaned out from his new cover and opened up, sweeping his weapon from side to side in a fashion unlike a Ghatazhak, as Master Sergeant Jahal and the other three soldiers ran across the street to join him.
    “We have to get to the far corner and secure this street!” the commander yelled. “This will be our evac LZ!”
    “Copy that!” the master sergeant replied. “Brakar One Seven, Jahal!” he called over his comm-set. “Move to intersection Micker Four and hold! We will hold intersection Kato Two!”
    “ Brakar One Seven, moving to Micker Four! On station in two! ”
    “Make it one,” Master Sergeant Jahal ordered as he spun around and fired at Jung troops displayed in his visor. “Brakar One One, Jahal. Move to intersection Micker Three and hold!”
    “ One One moving to Micker Three! What about the south corridor! I lost Brakar Niner five minutes ago! ”
    “Brakar Niner is with us!” Master Sergeant Jahal replied. “The south corridor is closed for now! How many men do you have?”
    “ One One has five from Brakar Two Six! Fifteen total! We’ll be on Micker Three in one! ”
    “Copy that! Hold the north and west corridors. Everyone be ready to fall back to the east corridor when the evac shuttles arrive!”
    Telles and his men ducked into the building, tucking themselves away tightly, as sniper fire from the far northwest corner on the other side of the command bunker slammed into the building above them.
    “One One!” Jahal yelled over the comms. “Check the fire from the northwest corner of Micker Three! We’ve got no shot!”
    “ Thirty seconds! ”
    More debris rained down around them, striking the ground with a crash. A blue-white flash lit up the street to the south, followed immediately by an ear-splitting crack of thunder and a shockwave of displaced air, as a combat jump shuttle appeared nearly one hundred meters down the street. It flew past them, spinning to starboard as it opened up