The Black Flag by Jay Allan

Author:Jay Allan [Allan, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: System 7 Publishing
Published: 2017-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

“The Red Plateau”

Planet Armstrong, Gamma Pavonis III

Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)

Cain fired, then again. He was down to single shots now, preserving what ammunition he had left. He’d sent runners back to order more supplies brought forward, but he went through three before one made it.

He’d gotten to the left flank moments before the enemy forces launched their attack. They sent in two thousand troopers, Cain figured, maybe more, and he’d scraped together exactly three hundred sixty-two…and he’d only managed that by stripping the rest of the line to dire levels.

He’d gotten reinforcements eventually, another two hundred or so, but only after his initial force repelled two attacks that outnumbered them at least five to one.

He’d ordered his Marines to dig the instant they got into position, but even with the monstrous strength of their powered armor, they’d only managed to scrape out a shallow set of works by the time the Black Flag troopers came upon them.

Cain’s people had held, grimly, doggedly, and he’d had to admit, his combination of fresh trainees and aged retirees returned to the colors had fought as well as any force he’d ever commanded. They died the same too, singly and in groups, from rifle fire and bombardments, and during one charge that had come perilously close to breaking the line, in hand to hand combat.

Cain had taken down two enemies himself with his blade, the molecules-thin knife that was sharp enough to cut through armor. It had been a long time since he’d used the blade and, even if his reflexes had slowed a bit, his skill with the weapon was still there.

He had about half the Marines he’d started with, but they’d used the time between assaults to strengthen their defenses, and their position was more than a match for the one that repelled the first charge. They still hadn’t equaled the strength of the trenches in the center, but now the field was littered with Black Flag dead, perhaps twelve hundred, even fifteen hundred. The enemy had diverted more forces to the attack, but they hadn’t been able to keep up with their losses. For all the vast numbers that had landed on Armstrong, the enemy’s strength was clearly beginning to dwindle.

Cain didn’t dare guess how many enemy soldiers the Marines had taken down since the first landings. Twenty thousand, he thought. Thirty? No, more, he realized. He had estimated the landing force to be somewhere between seventy and ninety thousand, and he figured close to half of those were down.

And, for them, down means dead. Cain had watched as the enemy had failed to set up any aid stations, any hospitals. He was disgusted at a fighting force with so little regard for its soldiers, and he wondered how they maintained loyalty and discipline. How do you get soldiers to fight for you when you are so clear you consider them expendable?

He fired another shot, picking off a Black Flagger who’d gotten careless and raised his head too far.

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