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Chapters (42)
  1. Cover Blurb
  2. Contents
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty

He turned back to the main display.  “And order the Marines to proceed with all due dispatch,” he added.  “We may be running short of time.”

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Charles suppressed the urge to whoop and cry hurrah as the shuttles plunged through the planetary atmosphere, lurching from side to side as if they expected the alien ground-based defences – if there were any defences – to open fire at any moment.  This was what he'd signed up for, a daring combat drop right into the heart of enemy territory.  Maybe the enemy weren't as heavily armed as he assumed they would be, when the human military actually hit an alien colony world, but it was still a combat drop.  Drills just weren't the same.

“Ten seconds,” he called, as the shuttle lurched violently.  There was no incoming fire, thankfully, but he was sure it was just a matter of time until they hit a heavily-defended world.  By then, the lessons from a reasonably placid combat drop would have to be learned and learned well.  “Five seconds ...”

He was first out of the shuttle, as it should be.  The magnetic field tossed him through the hatch and sent him plunging down towards the world below.  Beside him, combat drones came online, spoofing enemy sensors and giving them a multitude of targets to engage ... if they’d had anything to use to engage the onrushing humans.  Behind him, the remainder of the Marines streamed out of the shuttle.  He spared a moment of sympathy for the damn reporter – no matter how hard he’d worked over the last few days, he was utterly unprepared for a combat drop – then turned his mind back to the landing.  Below, the alien camp was rapidly coming into view.

The chute popped bare seconds before he would have hit the ground, yanking him to a slow fall that allowed him to land reasonably gently.  It disintegrated a second later as Charles moved forward, weapons and sensors searching for targets.  The combat datanet came online as the other Marines landed, most of them fanning out in a wide circle around the alien camp.  A smaller group would take care of the alien buildings to the south, dealing with any defences as rapidly and brutally as necessary, but taking aliens alive if possible.  Charles knew better than to think that taking prisoners would be easy, yet he knew the human race needed to learn to understand its foe.

Pushing the thought aside, he led the way towards the alien camp.  The wall surrounding it was solid metal; despite seeing it from orbit, he’d expected to discover that it was actually a fence when they hit the ground.  It seemed excessive, somehow.  The alien guards swung around, then opened fire, confirming Charles’s suspicion that the aliens had managed to construct plasma weapons that could be comfortably carried by a single soldier.  Each of them, he recognised unwillingly, was capable of burning through a Marine-issue battlesuit ...