Sheridan left Sergeant McDaniel's squad to hold the bridge while he crawled back over to Cole. Both men opened fire hitting one of the few hunter-killers still operational. One by one, the robots were picked off until there was not a single machine left on Sheridan's end of the bridge.

Sheridan and Cole warily stood up and looked about at the clumps of dead Chosen and the destroyed robots covering the ground.

Cole said, "Sir, sounds like the enemy is still fighting our guys on the far bank."

Sheridan turned his head and listened to the noise of battle for a second. "The automatic grenade-launcher, maybe it's still operational!"

"Roberts, you're with me," ordered Cole as he sprinted over to the rubble that had once been Garcia's position.

Dust and smoke from burning wood clouded the air. Clawing at the wreckage, the two Marines pulled away the debris as they tried to find the grenade-launcher. A couple more men from a nearby squad ran over to help. After a couple of minutes' work, the men were covered in sweat and dirt.

Cole, suddenly, stopped what he was doing and snapped his fingers in the air. "Stop!" he yelled. Bending down he placed his head near the rubble and listened.

A faint voice cried out for help. Tammy barked in response.

Like possessed men, they yanked and pulled the wreckage aside trying to get to whoever was trapped underneath. Roberts let out a loud whoop when a shattered wooden beam was shoved out of the way and Garcia looked up at him. Amazingly, Garcia and the Marine with her were unhurt. When the building collapsed, the roof above them buckled and then fell down in a V-shape, protecting them from the remainder of the house coming down on them.

"I thought you were dead," said Roberts.

"No, just incredibly lucky," replied Garcia as she crawled out of the hole. She was covered from head to toe in dust making her look like a ghost. Tammy trotted over and nudged Garcia's hand with her nose.

"The grenade-launcher, where is it?" asked Cole.

"It should be right beside where you found us," replied Garcia.

"Find it!" ordered Cole to the Marines.

Sheridan was amazed to see Garcia alive as she and the other man with her ran over with the launcher and set it up so they could fire. As soon as a belt of grenades was fed into the weapon, Garcia took aim and opened fire on the enemy still fighting on the other end of the bridge. Between her fire and a counter-attack by the rest of the company, the Chosen warriors were soon swept aside and destroyed.

The attack was over.

A loud cheer erupted from both sides of the bridge.

Sheridan did not feel like celebrating. They had been lucky. He turned to face Cole. "Sergeant, send a runner back to company headquarters and tell them to send some engineers over here right away. Ten to one the Kurgs cut some of the wires leading to the explosives under the bridge, I know I would have. Then let's see how badly we've been cut up."

"Right, sir," answered Cole noting the fatigue in Sheridan's voice. He knew that he would have to pay attention to the young officer for the next little while. He was a good man and one he knew would be hard to replace. If they were going to survive this fight, they would need men like Sheridan, and Cole did not want to lose him.

Chapter 24.

The voice in Tarina's headset counted down towards zero. They had gone over what was going to happen when they arrived in orbit above Derra-5 at least a dozen times, yet she still found herself thinking about it step by step.

"Zero," said the voice. Tarina engaged the jump engine. Their transport ship instantly disappeared from view replaced by an impenetrable black curtain. Until she actually experienced it herself, Tarina had always thought that when a ship made a jump that it was still possible to see the stars pa.s.sing by her ship as long streaks of light. Instead, a dark bubble had formed around her craft, so dark that even light could not penetrate it while she sped through s.p.a.ce faster than light. Their mission this time was to place into orbit two satellites above Derra-5 so they could gather information on the Kurgan fleet. Using data provided from their first mission, the satellites had been programmed to emit the same transponder signal as the Kurgan vessels in position above the planet, making them seem as if they belonged there.

Derra-5 appeared directly in front of Tarina's c.o.c.kpit as the ship came out of its jump. Right away, Wendy began the countdown for the return trip. Tarina reached down and pressed a b.u.t.ton, releasing their cargo. The satellite floated free from underneath her ship. Through her c.o.c.kpit gla.s.s, she could see a wave of Kurgan shuttlecraft descending down through the atmosphere heading for the surface. She estimated that there were at least thirty craft.

As before, the mission only lasted five seconds. Without being detected, they jumped away. Minutes later, the belly of their support ship filled her vision. Deftly maneuvering her ship, she flew back inside, landed and then patiently waited for the artificial gravity to be turned on and the hangar bay to be pressurized.

"My G.o.d, did you see all of those shuttlecraft?" said Wendy.

"Yeah, I suspect that they were sending reinforcements down," Tarina replied.

A technician tapped on the gla.s.s. Tarina waved back. The c.o.c.kpit lid lifted allowing the technicians access inside. As soon as her helmet was removed and her safety harness unbuckled, Tarina thanked her crew and climbed down to the hangar floor.

"All quiet?" asked Wright as he strolled over.

Tarina shook her head and filled him in on what she had witnessed.

"That's important. I'll make sure that gets pa.s.sed to fleet right away. Come on; let's see if our mission was a success."

Together both flight crews walked to the ship's briefing room. Wright asked the ship's executive officer to send the telemetry being sent back by the satellites above Derra-5 to the computers in the room. A few seconds pa.s.sed before the information came up.

"Bingo," Wright said, smiling. "Now, as long as the Kurgs don't change their transponder codes, we should be in business."

"Sir, how long will it take for this info to reach the fleet?" asked Lloyd.

"About three days. After that, who knows how long they'll spend a.n.a.lyzing the information before deciding what to do about it."

Tarina asked, "Sir, what's next on the books?"

Wright smiled and turned to leave. "We'll have to wait and see what fleet wants us to do."

After Wright was gone, Tarina looked at her friends. "Why do I get the feeling that he's never going to truly open up to us?"

"I doubt that he ever tells anyone the full picture, not even his parents," observed Wendy. "It's his nature, I guess."

Tarina let out a sigh and then looked down at the information on the computer screens. She prayed that it would provide their forces with a tactical advantage needed to engage and defeat the enemy. She did not mind her new role as a deep s.p.a.ce reconnaissance pilot; however, ever since learning about Sheridan's death all she could think about was killing Kurgans.

Chapter 25.

Vice Admiral Robert Sheridan sat at his desk in his private quarters on board his flagship, Colossus, a newly commissioned fighter carrier. At fifty-five years of age, Admiral Sheridan was at the top of his game. He was the commander of the newly formed Sixth Fleet, currently a.s.sembling in orbit around Jupiter. In superb shape, the admiral liked to run ten kilometers a day before breakfast. Like his son, he had black hair, which was slowly turning white at the temples. What caught people's attention the first time they met him were deep-green eyes that seemed to glow in the light.

"Sir, your priority message is coming in now," announced the ship's communication's officer over a speaker on his desk.

Admiral Sheridan turned to look up at the screen on the wall across from him. A second later, the image of Admiral Oshiro, the Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet appeared. "Good day, Admiral," he said in greeting.

"Good day, to you too Robert," replied Oshiro. "Please accept my deepest heartfelt condolences on the loss of your son."

Admiral Sheridan felt a pang in his heart. "Thank you, sir."

"Robert, I know you're busy, so I'll make this short. How goes the shakedown with the Sixth?"

"Not too bad, sir, there's still a few kinks to work out, but I have the staff working day and night to get us fully operational."

Oshiro smiled. "That's good news. I want your ops and planning staff to look at options to tackle the Kurgan fleet in orbit above Derra-5. My people have already transmitted the necessary information that they will require to formulate their plan. I want you to be able to defeat the enemy fleet, establish a perimeter and then support a ground invasion force, all in very short order. You should know that the president has expressly forbidden us from using nuclear weapons. It would appear that the Kurgans have yet to use them and he does not want to be the one to initiate a t.i.t for tat exchange of nukes like happened in the last war. Robert, I also want you to keep this close hold, use only those staff officers you absolutely need to."

"Got it, sir. How's it going elsewhere?"

Oshiro's face usually stone-faced visage, saddened. "The Second Fleet was on the border when the Kurgans struck. It put up a good fight but has had to be withdrawn to refit and reorganize after losing almost seventy percent of its strength. The Third and Fourth Fleets have replaced the badly beaten up Second and are engaging the enemy as we speak. I have the Fifth and First in reserve. I will not commit either formation until I know what the Kurgans' main effort is. I still don't know if they going after our populated outer colonies or after our resource producing planets."

"They attacked on such a broad front that it's hard to determine just what they're after," noted Admiral Sheridan. "Admiral, has there been a formal declaration of war given by the Kurgan Empire? It seems so odd that they would decide to attack us out of the blue after a century of relative peace between us and the Kurgans."

"We still have heard nothing from them and I don't think we will either. Our listening stations along the border heard absolutely no chatter indicating that the Kurgans were planning to attack us. This was an extremely well planned and executed operation. Secrecy was maintained right up until the day they started shooting at us."

Admiral Sheridan took a sip of water and then continued. "You have to wonder at the timing of their attack. After decades of budget cuts, the government back home finally decides to increase the defense budget and increase the size of our armed forces by ten percent. Which I might add would still leave us with a military half the size of the one we had when I first joined as a lowly ensign."

"My thoughts exactly. It's no coincidence that they hit us before we could modernize our forces. If they can s.n.a.t.c.h a quick victory and force us back to the negotiating table like they did one hundred years ago, then we've lost this war already."

"Well, whatever the reason may be, we're at war with the Kurgans and that's all that matters right now. The historians can tell us why later."

Oshiro sagely nodded his head. "Robert, I'll be in your location in three days' time. I'm bringing General Denisov, the ground force commander, with me. I want you to brief me on your portion of the plan at that time."

"Right, sir, I also take it this means that you want my fleet ready to deploy in seventy-two hours."

Oshiro smiled.

"Very good, sir, I look forward to your visit."

"Robert, before I sign off, I want you to place your fleet on yellow alert. There have been rumors of saboteurs trying to gain access to the nuclear a.r.s.enals on board our ships. If they were to set off a single bomb anywhere within the fleet, the result could be crippling."

"Yellow alert it is, sir."

Oshiro's image vanished from the screen. Admiral Sheridan called for his chief of staff. If his staff thought they were busy before, they had no idea of the amount of work he was about to dump on them. While he waited, he brought up a picture of Derra-5 and its solar system on the screen, and studied it. A plan already began to percolate in his mind. He wondered if his staff would see the same thing. If they did not, they surely would before he gave his briefing to Admiral Oshiro. His thirty-seven year career was about to be tested in battle for the first time and he did not intend to fail.

Chapter 26.

"Sir, Captain Rolleston's coming," said Cole to Sheridan.

With a tired sigh, Sheridan sat up, pulled off his dust-covered blanket, placed his helmet on his head and walked out onto the bridge. The wreckage and frozen Chosen bodies were still being moved to one side.

"Mister Sheridan, you look like you just woke up," Rolleston said.

"Yes, sir, I was just having a catnap."

"Sorry about that." Rolleston looked over at the macabre pile of Chosen dead. "I'll get Gunnery Sergeant Wilson to clean that up today."

Sheridan wearily nodded his head. He was tired and numb inside. He saw the Chosen remains as nothing more than so much debris that had to be removed.

"You and your men fought well yesterday," said Rolleston.

"Thank you, sir. Any word on replacements for my casualties?"

"None yet. Besides, it won't be your problem anymore. You're being sent to the rear. Someone back at headquarters wants to talk to you."

Sheridan was genuinely confused. "Sir, I don't get it. Why would they want to talk to me?"

Rolleston shrugged his beefy shoulders. "I have no idea. All I know is that I was told to tell you that you're to hand over your platoon to Second Lieutenant Miles and report to divisional headquarters ASAP."

"What about the people I came with?"

"For now, I was told that they will remain here."

"Yes, sir," Sheridan replied reluctantly.

"Grab your things and I'll walk you to the rear."

Sheridan turned and walked back to the bunker to grab his few possessions. Cole walked in. "Sir, I heard it all. Perhaps they're giving you a medal and then sending you right back here."

"And if they don't?"

"Then you take of yourself, sir," replied Cole, offering his hand.

Sheridan shook his mentor's hand and then slung his pack over his shoulder. He felt that he should say something, but found himself unable to find the right words to thank Cole.

Cole grinned. "Keep your head down, sir."

"You too, Sergeant." With that, Sheridan reluctantly walked out of the bunker and joined Rolleston. Walking away from his platoon, Sheridan felt a pang of guilt. They were staying and he was going somewhere safe. He did not like it and planned to give someone at headquarters an earful when he got there.

An hour later, after washing the dirt and grime from his face, Sheridan sat in a long hallway at divisional headquarters. He was sipping on a cup of coffee and nibbling on a biscuit. The people scurrying around the building were all clean and looked fresh compared to the men and women he had left behind on the bridge. A sergeant walked over and escorted Sheridan to General Gruber's office. He was more than a little surprised to see that he was going to see the commanding general.

"Second Lieutenant Sheridan to see you, sir," announced the sergeant.

"Send him in," replied Gruber, his tone tired and gruff.

Sheridan stepped inside the Spartan office, came to attention and sharply saluted the general.

"Please take a seat, Mister Sheridan," Gruber said, returning the salute.

Sheridan took a seat facing the general's desk. The division's sergeant major was in the room as well.

"I've been hearing good things about you, Mister Sheridan."