March To The Stars (im-3) by David Weber & John Ringo

Author:David Weber & John Ringo [Weber, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_action, sf_heroic, sf_space

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

For the first time in a career that had seen the term used more times than he cared to remember, Armand Pahner had just discovered what "having your back to the wall" really felt like.

It was a much more powerful metaphor, under the circumstances, than he had previously believed. But that was because it was unpleasant to literally stand with his back to a closed gate while more and more enemies closed in on the humans and their allies. The Basik's Own was being pushed back into a broad "C" around the gate, and he knew that unless they got the gate opened—somehow—they were all going to be killed.

And eaten.

That was more than enough to convince any CO that he was in for a bad day. In Pahner's case, however, it was only one minor, additional item. Armand Pahner was widely known as a man who got steadily calmer as the situation got worse. Which was undoubtedly the reason his voice was very, very calm when Sergeant Major Kosutic turned up to report in.

"And where," he asked her, "is Roger?"

The same circumstances which produced monumental calmness in the captain produced a sort of manic humor in the sergeant major, and Kosutic swept off her helmet and cocked her head at him.

"Feeling a bit tense, Captain?" she inquired, and Pahner gave her a thin smile.

"Sergeant Major," he replied quietly, "I have known you for some years. And we need every gun we can muster. So I will not kill you. If... you tell me where Prince Roger is. Right Now."

"Up there." Kosutic pointed upward as a sound of releasing locks echoed through the gate tower. "Opening the gates."

"Great," Pahner said with the grumpiness reserved for the moments when he found himself with no option but to depend upon his rambunctious charge's talent for surviving one near-suicidal bit of mayhem or another without him. "Now if we can just break contact, we'll be home free."

* * *

Poertena winced as the breaching charge blew in another heavy wooden door. The tower's internal defenses required double charges, and the overpressure slapping at the Marine caused his suit to go momentarily rigid yet again.

There probably wasn't much of a threat left on the other side of the portal, given the hail of splinters the charge should have blasted into the room. But Momma Poertena's boy hadn't made it this far on the basis of "probably," and he wasn't about to take chances when they were this close to home. So he thumbed the tab on a concussion grenade, tossed it into the room beyond, and waited until the weapon had gone off before following it through the shattered doorway.

The room was filled with a haze of propellant residue, but two Krath were still partially functional on the far side of the room. One was hopping up and down, clutching a piece of shrapnel in his leg, and the other was just climbing back to his feet after the dual explosions. Two shotgun rounds sufficed

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