Darkside by Michael Mammay

Author:Michael Mammay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

When Sergeant Walthes and Corporal Bootch reached us, it took just a second to get us all on the same channel, and not much more for me to issue instructions.

“Bootch, you take the lieutenant. Jonas, you stay with them. Go as slow as you need to. Consolidate with the rest of the team, 121 degrees, about 450 meters. Walthes, Ezekiel, you’re with me. We’re at double time.”

“I can go with you,” said Jonas, getting to her feet.

She had a bad ankle, but in low gravity, maybe it would work, and we didn’t lose anything if she tried but couldn’t make it. “Fine. But keep up. We can’t slow down.”

Jogging in low gravity is weird. You don’t speed up much faster than you do in full gravity initially, but after a few seconds you keep getting faster. The stride is different, too—much longer—so you took a lot fewer steps. But for that reason, you really had to watch where you came down, because you usually couldn’t see your landing spot when you launched the way you would in normal g. The higher speed made turning harder, and slowing down took longer. We closed the distance to Mac’s previous location in just over seventy seconds, slowing at the end. Jonas trailed behind us, but only by a few seconds.

I reoriented us to eighty-eight degrees and we took off again, about four hundred meters behind Mac and his team, who dipped in and out of view with the terrain. He’d said the distance was five klicks, so I set a more sustainable pace.

We didn’t speak. The slower pace didn’t mean we had air to waste on chatter. I found Mac’s group talking on the platoon net as they approached their target. Mac had taken charge, which meant the actual platoon sergeant was incapacitated or they’d made a joint call to switch command based on Mac’s experience.

A rocket streaked away from Mac’s position, announcing their entry into a battle that was little more than a few tracers before that. A couple seconds later, a bright flash lit the darkness a klick or so out from the launch point. Mac had probably targeted the heavy weapon position of the enemy. He’d mentioned it before and would want to take that out quickly. We didn’t have a read on enemy assets or their ability to replenish, but that surprise attack would help even whatever odds we faced.

I caught bits of the battle—a flash here, an explosion there—as running took most of my focus. Tracers whipped up into the air from three or four shooters, but I couldn’t look up long enough to see their target. Probably a drone. Wasted fire since hitting a moving object with projectile weapons in the dark is almost impossible.

A rocket streaked from the air and lit the night as it slammed into Mac’s position. I held my team up about a hundred meters short of that to see if the drone attack continued. No sense running straight into it. I hadn’t noticed my lungs burning during our run, but now it hit me hard.

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