The Mercenary: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Drop Trooper: Recon Book 3) by Rick Partlow

Author:Rick Partlow [Partlow, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

12

“End of plan A,” I murmured, feeling a weary disappointment. “What was plan B again?”

“There’s always a plan B,” Bobbi said in dry counterpoint.

What was left of the Savage/Slaughter compound crackled and smoldered and billowed clouds of black smoke into the dull blue of false dawn. We’d approached it from the woods, taking the mules through the mountain pass back down into the river valley but coming in away from the town. It had been rough going, and slow, but it had kept us away from the assault shuttles that we could hear overflying the valley. Unfortunately, they’d already made a visit here ahead of us.

“Shit,” Calderon hissed, slipping down from the mule, his eyes wide. “Those fucking bastards…”

“We should go down and check for survivors,” I suggested half-heartedly, dismounting to stand beside the mercenary officer. I didn’t really want to be walking out there in the open trying to help a bunch of assholes who’d been trying to kill us earlier, but it felt like the right thing to do. “Bobbi, keep Victor, Kurt and Sanders here with Marquette.”

The ragged, skinny older man hadn’t said a word the whole ride down the mountain except once when he informed us that he had to urinate. Even now, he merely stared dully through the trees at the carnage left behind at the mercenary camp, huddled inside the oversized jacket we’d brought along for him, as if not even the cold penetrated through his haze. I knew that wasn’t true, though; we needed to get him to shelter, or he was going to get hypothermic.

“Waugh, you and Vilberg are with me and Captain Calderon. Keep your interval and be ready to hit the dirt if anyone sees a shuttle.”

As the four of us approached, I could feel the heat radiating outward from the conflagration, burning away the bitter chill of the morning. Wreckage was strewn everywhere, and from how far it was scattered and the heat of the fires, I guessed that the shuttles had hit their ammunition stores. The guard towers were down, the scorched shadows trailing behind the positions they’d occupied indicative of the proton blasts that had vaporized the gun turrets and most of the top half of the structures.

I led the others through the shredded, melted remnants of the perimeter fence, stepping carefully around bits of charred and smoking buildfoam and twisted metal still glowing red hot. There was too much heat and smoke pouring off the main building for us to approach it, but Calderon shouldered past me and shielded his face with an upraised hand, peering into the ruins with slitted eyes. There were no bodies, no sign of his people, but blasts of accelerated protons that could level buildings would vaporize even armored humans without a trace.

“This is maybe an hour old,” Vilberg said, his voice sounding hoarse and shocked even over his helmet speakers. “Do you think they knew we’d come here?”

“I think they knew we got out with Marquette,” I told him. “They wanted to make sure we didn’t have any place safe we could hide with him.

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