All That Was Lost Read online

  Tiberius would not let his emotions show, she was his first real commanding officer and he felt the pain of all of the lost ever since he joined the Integrity. As they arrived back where the birds were he noticed that the one Second Squad had arrived on was still there, he led them to the ship and noticed Quintus walking down the ramp, his helmet forgotten beside the bird.

  “Why are you still here? You’re supposed to be getting Walsh to the doc.”

  “He’s gone.”

  It hit him like a ton of bricks. Another of their team was gone. “He was supposed to get to the doc. He was supposed to be fine. Why didn’t…” his words drifted, he couldn’t stand the haunted look in his friend’s eyes.

  “He moved when we were getting ready to lift off and the foam cracked. Blood began spilling out…he was gone before I could cover his wound.” Quintus’ shoulders sunk as he sunk to the floor of the gunship and put his head in his hands. To his credit he wasn’t making any noise as he cried for all the loss they’d seen. Their first real combat, and they’d lost so many of their squad.

  Tiberius stood and looked at him for a second and shook his head. He felt for his friend, it wasn’t easy for them to lose a squadmate, let alone their friends. It was also hard to watch his best friend cry. “Then lets get the Captain strapped in and see if anyone has radioed this in yet.”

  “I can tell you they haven’t.” The two men turned to look at Captain Hamilton. “There’s something jamming our frequency and we can’t get radio in or out. Been trying it myself for a few minutes now.”

  “If it’s not one thing…fine is there a communications tower we can take over that will let us get signals out?” Tiberius shook his head, this was getting to be too much, the mission had gone to hell in a hand basket. Then something clicked with him and he smiled at the Captain. “Captain, the Integrity would be able to detect and destroy any ship leaving the colony, correct?”

  He nodded, “Yes, the ships radar is the most advanced piece of navigational tech out there. Why?”

  “Because I don’t think the General has been able to flee the colony yet, I think we can still capture him.”

  Chapter 14

  First Lieutenant Watson stared down the barrel of his rifle, and he was certain this would be his last mission. He’d die on this traitorous ship along with the rest of his security team. But he’d take as many of the bastards with him as possible. Turning the selector to full auto he held the trigger and sprayed the gun slit with as much ammo as possible, praying silently to the Emperor and the gods above that at least one of his rounds hit flesh.

  The two soldiers on the other side of the slit screamed out as the rounds found some weak spots and the gun was dropped, it’s muzzle pointing up as it became trapped in the gun slit. One of them made the mistake of standing and Watson sent a round through his head ending any threat he might pose. The other tried to pull the weapon up to fire and just as Watson squeezed the trigger a shout filled the corridor.

  His rounds connected with the metal but the second man went down, there was another shout and he turned his weapon to the second set of men and found they were down.

  “Got ‘em Captain.” Adam Wood was one of the best with weapons of all shapes and sizes, and Watson was glad he brought him on the mission. Especially since he’d probably just saved Watson’s life.

  “Damn good job. Lets get moving then.” He led them back through the bulkhead and they headed towards the bow of the ship again.

  Keeping their weapons at the ready they kept on moving until they came to a bulkhead and heard talking. Watson tried to hear what they were saying but only caught snippets.

  “-going to the brig-”

  “I hope he rots in-”

  “Oh both of you need a-”

  He had a hand up signaling his men to halt and wait for his go. Listening to them he realized there wasn’t anything worth listening to in their conversation and he motioned them forward, these men would die as well. They needed to have as few enemies as possible that could come to the Captains aide once they caught him. It brought him no joy, but doing this was his Emperors will, this was doing what was right and just to preserve the Imperium.

  Crouched and walking silently towards them he unsheathed his KA-BAR and held it point down, one of them started to turn and he couldn’t risk them trying to run. Leaping up he drove the point of the blade down through the top of the man’s skull, all the way to the hilt as another of his men threw his knife like a bullet and embedded it fully into the second man’s face.

  The third panicked and tried to run away. “Murphy!” he called out and a knife went whizzing past his head and stuck in the spine of the runner. He dropped and skidded to a stop just in front of the wall on their left. “Damn good throw Murphy.”

  “Thank you sir.” She replied. Yasmine Murphy was a good soldier, and the best knife thrower in the entire Imperium.

  “Lets get a move on, eventually there’s going to be enough missing personnel that they’ll start actively searching for us.”

  “Why didn’t the Admiral just destroy the damned thing? Why send us here to capture some blow hard that doesn’t deserve to breathe?”

  “Are you really questioning an order Murphy?” the captain asked.

  “Sir, I don’t understand it.”

  “You don’t need to understand it. It’s an order from the Admiral, that’s all you need to know, you need to follow it.”

  Farther down the stretch of corridor they saw signs to label where things were and saw in blue a sign that said BRIDGE in big letters and an arrow, they followed the sign and turned at the next bulkhead and saw it was all a trap. Up ahead they saw eight men stationed with heavy weapons at the ready, each one had a modified version of a machine gun. They also had on heavy power armor, thick plates of steel surrounding their bodies making them move so slow Watson and his men could walk to the back of the ship before the soldiers made it to where they stood. But with all that armor on they were basically tanks that had very little in the way of weaknesses.

  Because of the armor they were arrogant enough to not carry shields with them Watson noticed. He did notice there were some containers, like what they used to move ordinance and armor from one place to the other, on one side and he smiled, they would work for them to move closer when the time was right.

  “Gods above. How did they get all of that?” Murphy asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m not playing around anymore.” He pulled the duffel down and set it on the floor, unzipped it and pulled out a heavy weapon he liked to call a tank buster. It was a lightweight weapon that looked similar to a grenade launcher with a shorter barrel and a flip up sight that was laser sight. The weapon had a small magazine on the left side that held four rounds in it. “Auker do you read me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How close are you to the bridge?”

  There was a pause, “Close, there’s a group of heavily armored soldiers between us and the bridge. You?”

  “In the same position actually. I have the tank buster with me, once I fire it it should give us a good chance of getting past them.”

  “Perry has a sniper with him, he’s not professional, but he can hit a target if we give him one.”

  He thought about it for a moment and said “Tell him to aim for the neck, right at the black skin suit under the armor.”

  “Sir.” And the com went dead.

  “It’s time to bust a tank.” He said as he aimed at the cluster of men and smiled. This was going to be a fun time. He pulled the trigger and sent a ball of glowing plasma, about a foot in diameter, arcing at the closest soldier. They were usually only used in dire circumstances as the plasma rounds only had enough charge to last for about ten seconds after they were fired.

  They weren’t expecting to have something like that fired at them and the man tried to put an arm up like his thick armor would help him. It impacted on his forearm and burned right through severing it, his gloved hand landed on the floor.


  There was screaming from him and Watson smiled, firing another ball and then another he watched as the rebels tried to get behind something that would keep them safe. One round landed on the wounded man’s helmet and burned through the top of his head, his body shuddered and stilled as his life was extinguished.

  The second impacted one of the running soldiers at his calf and burned through dropping him to the hard metal below. He fired the last one and set the weapon down. One of the soldiers dropped and blood flowed across the floor, he knew it was from Perry, the sniper was a hunter back on Terra and his skills crossed over well.

  Three of the eight were down and the rest tried to hide behind the bulkheads and aim around at them.

  “We have them, keep it up, and aim for their weapons.” He called into his com at both his team and Aukers’. They fired at the machine guns the enemies carried, if they could disable those then the rest would be easy enough to finish.

  One of their guns sparked and flew from the man’s hand, he cursed at them and as he flipped them off Perry sent a round through his wrist making him grab it in pain and fall back.

  “Lets close in. Auker your squad is back up, keep Perry firing at them.”

  “Sir.”

  He motioned them forward and they took position behind one of the metal containers and three of them crouched shoulder to shoulder, aimed at the enemies trying to hide. They fired in bursts, hitting the armor with their rounds and slowly making them back up and try to cover up.

  Watson was lucky and hit one in the neck and saw blood spray as he went down, the soldier choking on his own blood as he died. It was a terrible way to go but it was them or him. And he would choose his life over theirs everyday.

  “Everyone duck!” came over the coms and they all dropped as flat to the floor as possible and there was a loud explosion and the containers shuddered. “What in the hell was that?” Watson yelled into the com.

  “Stun grenade, and it worked.” Came the response from his second, Auker.

  He stood and looked at the scene before him and saw just how effective the grenade truly was. The rest of the men were down from all of the small stun bullets that exploded out of the device, they adhered to any surface and delivered an electric shock to drop the person. With the amount of armor they were in it practically cooked each one of them, including the ones already downed.

  “Glad you’re on our side Auker. Lets move men, get to the bridge.”

  He took them forward and over the bodies laying sprawled on the floor, it was a mess. They followed the signs and found the bridge in less than ten minutes, after the explosion from the grenade they marched double time.

  “Do you have anymore of those nasty buggers?”

  “Of course, I have three more on me.” He hefted one and smiled at Watson. Classic breaching procedure would be to blow the door, send in a flashbang grenade and shoot anyone that moved with stun rounds. But the grenades would make it easier still.

  He looked at the panel and cursed, it was locked, which wasn’t a surprise. He pulled out a small tablet computer and pressed it to the console, the device flashed red in five different numbers and began counting up and down as it tried to unlock the door controls. Slicing a computer was almost as difficult as slicing a person open. Once the device began showing green numbers he knew it was getting close and once they were all green he heard a click, the door was ready to open.

  “Get those stun grenades primed, I want them all thrown once we know the Captain is there.” Pushing a button on the console the doors slid apart and they heard people shouting from the other room, he looked in with his rifle held high. “Cease and desist and you will not be harmed!” he called out, hoping they would be smart enough to listen.

  Some of the people continued moving, but the majority stopped and held their hands up in surrender. He saw the Captain and called out. “Target sighted.”

  “There’s too many of them around him, I can’t confirm he’s going to be stunned.”

  “Then throw one at him and we can mop up after.”

  It flew through the air and landed just a few feet away from him. The Captain backed up and two of the men in front of him jumped atop the grenade to absorb the blast, “Throw-” he began but Auker had them flying through the air as the first exploded into their torsos.

  The others were still in the air as they exploded and the security forces barely got to safety before the bulkhead of the bridge was hit. He looked around the bulkhead and saw the people laying on the floor, or in their chairs, or even a couple officers against their consoles. Spying the captain he held his rifle up and led them towards the man. “Secure him and lets com the Admiral.”

  They moved among the people and as he and Auker cuffed the Captain the others checked pulses to see who was unconscious and who was dead. The two that jumped on the first grenade were most definitely dead, they had holes that began in their chests and ended in exit wounds.

  “I got one dead here, the rest are out cold.” It was one of Aukers’ team that called out.

  “Then lets get moving.” He said and lifted the unconscious Captain onto his shoulders and unholstered his pistol, it would be easier to use his secondary with the added bulk on his shoulders. “Admiral this is First Lieutenant Watson, we have the precious cargo. What are our orders Sir?”

  It took a few seconds before “That is excellent news son, we are moving closer as we speak. Return to the bird and get back here.”

  “Yes, Sir. Okay men lets move, back to the birds.” He led them out of the bridge and back to where they converged, he looked at Auker and smiled. “This is where you take your men back.”

  Auker nodded and they separated. It took them almost a quarter hour to get back to their ship, oddly enough there was no resistance, as if they’d given up. Once they were back to their birds he saw six bodies on the floor, no armor but they wore what was becoming the familiar green and red of Rising Anvil members.

  One of the three men he’d left to protect the ship came from behind a container he didn’t remember seeing there earlier and called out to them. “Cap, we kept the ship safe, got some kills in too.”

  “Good job Johnson, lets get the hell out of here.”

  They climbed into the bird and secured their precious cargo, he grunted, but didn’t stir. Once he told the pilot they were ready to go they closed the outermost door, retracted the tube, and pulled away from the ship, the atmosphere rushed from the ship and before it could close off it’s wound all six bodies were released into space.

  “We got away safe, good job team.”

  “Sir, we have a problem.” The pilot called.

  “What now?” he was irritated now and just wanted to be back on the hard steel floor of the ship.

  “Their weapons systems are coming back online and we are being targeted. I’m beginning evasive maneuvers now.” The pilot’s voice sounded strained and they felt the bird change course a couple of times, felt the ship shudder as something grazed them.

  “Auker did your group get away safe?” he asked frantically into the com.

  “Yes, Sir. We are almost-” static filled the com and Watson blanched. “Auker? Auker! Do you read me?” he screamed into the com and his men did their best to look away from him. They all knew what it meant, but he didn’t want to admit to it.

  The other bird had been hit by their weapons and it was gone.

  Chapter 15

  “I didn’t think about it before, because of the battle, but if the coms are being jammed then there’s a chance that the squads sent to the enemy base are in trouble, or have already been overrun.” Tiberius said as he thought about what might have happened to the other squads they’d come with.

  “You really got to work on your speeches man.” Quintus called.

  They could hear the wind rushing past them as the remnants of second and third squads sat in their seats aboard the Sparrowhawks moving to the base. All together they numbered eighteen souls, not much of a reinforceme
nt force, but they were better than nothing.

  Working together they figured out that the communications array was on the base itself, and that meant if they wanted the Admiral to send backup they needed that signal jammer offline. Having the birds fly as cover fire would help them, but only if the enemy didn’t have some anti-air weaponry, he hoped to the gods they didn’t.

  As they flew by they could see Imperial soldiers positioned atop buildings with their sniper rifles searching for enemies, bodies littered the streets as a testament to how effectively they used their weapons. The snipers had a spotter each, who also worked as backup if someone tried to come up to the rooftop and attack them. Next to each one was a container holding extra ammo, and their rifles rested on the lip of the roof for extra stability.

  “Can you set down close to them? We can let them know what’s going on.” He asked the pilot through their coms. In response they began diving towards the closest rooftop, both ships pulling forward so the rear hatch touched the top of the roof and he leaned out, “Can you hear me?” he asked them. When they all nodded he asked “Have you heard from anyone else?”

  One of the snipers spoke up while he kept his eye in his scope looking for his next kill. The man had to be over six foot when he stood straight up, and he was broad as a barn. “We barely have communication with the other squads around here, somethings’ up with the coms, but we can’t break formation to figure it out.”

  He told the sniper the stripped down version of their battle with the enemy forces, and the General escaping.

  “How many can you fit in your birds?” he asked.

  “Six total.” He said mournfully, it was raw pain, but this was war and there was no room for emotions here.

  “Pack it up boys.” The sniper said to his squad. “Mikhail you’ll stay here with Mitchell, Collins, Grant, Gustin and West. The rest of you lets go we have a new mission.” He held his rifle and offered his hand to Tiberius.