“It’s too late, Sergeant.” Plunkett was trying to sound calm, but it was clear he was rattled. We’ve got assault shuttles inbound. We’re out of time. Get ready to bug out. Now!”

Hargraves turned toward Avery. “Sorry, Mr. Avery…but the enemy is on the way. It’s time to get the hell out of here.”

*   *   *

Arn Millius sat against the hard metal of the lander’s inner hull. The craft had gyrated wildly on the way down to the surface, partially the result of the speed of insertion, but mostly from the evasive maneuvers that were standard, even when the defenders were unlikely to possess any real surface to air interception capability.

Santis had a thick atmosphere, and that only made things worse. Millius remembered his earliest days in the legion, and his first combat drops. He’d been prone to space sickness…and his first hard ride down to a planet’s surface had threatened to turn him inside out. At least he’d been a line trooper then. The sight of a Praefectus vomiting all over his comrades would be unseemly to say the least.

The fight for the station had never been in question, but a doubt tugged at him from the back of his mind. There had only been ten of the Confederation Marines on the platform, and they had fought ferociously. His forces had outnumbered them ten to one, five to one even counting the civilians they had armed. Still, the battle had gone on for over an hour, and in the end, a dozen of his troopers were killed and as many wounded before the enemy had been wiped out. It was a far higher toll than he’d expected, and he wondered if it was a fluke…or if the Confed marines were simply that good.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. Alliance stormtroopers did what they were ordered to do, they prevailed, whatever the cost. Based on the size of the enemy settlement, he expected his forces would have a large numerical advantage once they got to the ground. Still, he’d requested that the second cohort follow up the first wave immediately, and Commander Rigellus had approved without question.

“Six kilometers.” The voice of the lander’s AI was loud in his headset.

He could hardly move, strapped into the thick harness, clad in body armor and loaded down with his weapons. Alliance stormtroopers went into action ready for battle, even the senior officers, and he carried everything his troopers did.

The ship banked hard to the right, angling down directly toward the LZ. The enemy’s records on the station confirmed the scanning reports. There was only a single settlement on the surface, situated right next to the massive coastal refinery that separated the precious tritium from seawater.

That will make things easier. One place to assault, one group of Confeds to…