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they had accomplished their mission. The bridge was still in his hands, not the enemy’s. A small knot of Chosen warriors fought to the last, trapped out in the open. The last man took his own life by pulling the pin on a grenade and holding it next to his head rather than risk capture. 

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.

Suddenly, Cole 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 counterattack 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 toward 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 passing 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 space faster than light. Their mission 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 cockpit as the ship came out of its jump. Right away, Wendy began the countdown for the return trip. Tarina reached down and pressed a button, releasing their cargo. The satellite floated free from underneath her ship. Through her cockpit glass, 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.

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 God, 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 glass. Tarina waved back. The cockpit 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 passed 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 passed 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 analyzing 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 space reconnaissance pilot; however, 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 battle cruiser. 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 assembling 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 his deep green eyes that seemed to glow in the light.

“Sir, your priority message is coming in now,” announced the ship’s communications 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 tit-for-tat exchange of nukes like what 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 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 Fleet 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 are 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 the Kurgans and us.”

“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