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replaced the awful sound of the bombardment. Cole tapped Sheridan and pointed to the far side of the river. Sheridan took back his binoculars and spotted a couple of wounded men staggering toward a flimsy pontoon bridge built across the river. Within seconds, the trickle turned into a torrent as scores of men, some of them severely wounded, rushed for the crossing.

Sheridan heard someone inside the bunker swear. “God damn it, they’re pulling back too soon,” said another angrily. Whatever had been carefully orchestrated was rapidly falling apart. Sheridan guessed that they had planned for an orderly withdrawal in the face of the enemy. However, after an hour of unrelenting pounding, the men had broken. It was a rout.

The sound of a deafening loud explosion further down the river made Sheridan’s heart skip a beat. He turned his head and watched as the bridge he had fought so hard to defend was blown to pieces to prevent its capture by the enemy. He shook his head and looked back at the flood of men trying to escape. It was hard to see the river as thick black smoke from a nearby fire billowed past the viewport. Switching on his thermal binoculars would not help. There were too many fires burning to be able to tell the fleeing men from the white-hot background.

“Here they come!” yelled out the gunnery sergeant. 

Sheridan and Cole saw several Kurgan officers running to the river with flags held high above their heads. Behind them like a surging white wave came thousands of Chosen warriors, cheering at the top of their lungs. From concealed positions on their side of the river, Marine heavy weapons teams opened fire and cut down files of Chosen soldiers; their bodies tumbled down the steep riverbank into the cold, black water. Marines trapped out in the open on the narrow pontoon bridge fought and died under the heavy fusillade brought down upon them by the Chosen. Sheridan ground his teeth as he watched, impotent to stop the massacre. In less than a minute, there was not a single Marine left alive. The dead littered the ground or floated downstream carried by the fast flowing river.

The whoosh sound of incoming missiles told them that a deadly volley fired by enemy drones hovering above the river was about to strike. All along the Marines’ defensive position, the heavy weapons teams suffered crippling losses as the drones flew above them firing everything they had, trying to silence the weapons. The hellish noise all around the bunker was deafening. A second later, dozens of anti-aircraft missiles fired by Marine air-defense soldiers, well back from the battle, surged up into the night sky blasting several drones out of the air. The remainder quickly ducked down below the height of the houses and then skimmed just above the river as they maneuvered to a new position to continue the fight.

Hundreds of Marines hidden in the trenches along the riverbank popped up and joined the fight. Tracers tore through the dark. For every tracer round, four other bullets were fired, killing and maiming dozens of enemy soldiers at a time.

With the far bank cleared of opposition, the Kurgans, ignoring their growing casualties, brought forward a company of tanks to bring fire down on the defenders. Sheridan saw that they were not the massive destroyer tanks they had first used, but were lighter ten-wheeled armored vehicles with 180mm cannons on them. The tanks quickly formed a firing line and began to pound the trench line, trying to silence the men fighting back.

“Over there,” called out a hoarse voice.

Sheridan tried to see what the man had spotted. He adjusted his position and then saw what was coming their way. Two large Kurgan armored bridge layers rumbled past the tanks and then stopped at the river’s edge. Almost right away, the vehicles began to extend their collapsed metal bridges across the river. 

“I don’t get it. Why aren’t they shooting at the bridge layers?” Cole asked Sheridan as he watched a company of Chosen engineers rush forward to help finish building the two bridges.

Sheridan looked over and saw that the Marines were firing on the tanks and the foot soldiers only. It was as if they could not see the long metal bridges being built right under their noses. He turned to face a major and said, “Sir, what gives? Why aren’t your men trying to destroy the Kurgan bridges before they get built?”

“Wait for it, Lieutenant,” the major replied bluntly.

Sheridan looked at Cole and shrugged his shoulders. Below at the water’s edge, some of the Chosen engineers jumped up onto the bridges and secured them to the far bank. Others ran to the other side to fasten it to the steep riverbank just below the Marine trenches. They were close enough that Sheridan could hear them talking to one another. Through the swirling smoke, he spotted a couple of the tanks edging down until they were on the bridges. Behind them, Chosen soldiers cheered and ran to join the attack. They began to chant to God, in Kurgan. With their officers leading them, the enemy warriors were eager to get to grips with the Marines on the other side of the river.

“That’ll do,” announced the regimental commander. “Fire the demolitions.”

“Yes, sir,” replied an engineer lieutenant as he pressed down on a red button on an old-fashioned electric firing board.

Sheridan expected to hear a massive explosion. Instead, nothing happened. 

The officer pushed the button frantically a couple more times. “The wire must be cut.” Jumping up onto his feet, the lieutenant ran to the back of the bunker and out into the open where the cable was laid. He made it less than ten meters before he died in a hail of bullets. His sergeant and a corporal tried as well but met the same fate.

Sheridan swore. The tanks were already halfway across the river. “Take over the firing board,” he said to Cole. Before the sergeant could tell him it was suicide, Sheridan was on the move. As he stepped outside of the bunker, brought his fingers up to his mouth and let out a loud whistle, a couple of Marines looked his way. “Pop smoke and cover me!” Sheridan yelled.

With a hiss, several smoke grenades tossed by the bunker began to emit a thick gray cloud covering the area in front of the shelter. Sheridan saw where the engineer officer had fallen and ran to his side. Desperate to stop the enemy from crossing the river, he dug his hands into the muck. A couple of seconds later, Sheridan found what he was looking for. He picked up the wire and began to follow it, looking for a break. All around him, bullets whizzed through the air and struck the dirt. After ten agonizingly long seconds searching, he found the split in the line. Dropping to his knees, he pulled out his knife and hurriedly cleared off the dirt and rubber coating from the electrical wires. With bullets whipping around his head, Sheridan quickly wound the two ends together. He could see Chosen warriors barely twenty meters away pointing at him, trying to warn their officers.

“Now!” hollered Sheridan as he threw himself face-first into the mud.

Cole muttered a prayer and pressed his thumb down on the firing button. A split second later, the entire far bank of the river vanished in an ear-splitting detonation. Hundreds of Chosen warriors waiting to cross the river were instantly killed by the thunderous blast. Thousands more were horribly maimed and wounded. The men and tanks on the bridges were hurled into the water and swept away as the bridges buckled in on themselves and then fell apart from the force of the deadly explosion. A thick, black cloud of smoke blanketed the river.

Cole was up and out of the bunker before the debris had stopped falling on their side of the river. He could not see Sheridan in the smoke, but he had a good idea where he was. He slid on his backside down the muddy slope until he found Sheridan lying motionless in the muck. Cole grabbed hold of Sheridan’s shoulders and rolled him over. The young officer’s face was caked with mud. A second later, he opened his eyes and gasped loudly as he took in a lung full of air. Coughing and wheezing, Sheridan was lucky to have only been winded by the blast.

“You’re one stupid officer, Lieutenant Michael Sheridan!” said Cole, helping him to his feet. “You could have been . . . no, you ought to be dead.” 

“Yeah, you could be right about that,” Sheridan replied.

What neither man knew was that the division’s entire supply of artillery shells had been secretly buried on the other side of the river. With their guns out of action, the artillerymen, working with a handful of combat engineers, had prepared their shells for detonation. 

General Gruber had gambled and won.

Chapter 35

Tarina listened to Wendy’s voice as she counted backward from ten. As soon as she reached five, Tarina gripped the joystick of her Avenger and waited for the harsh jolt to her body that would come when they came out of their jump into Derra-5’s atmosphere. Even though she had prepared herself mentally for the kick, her body still felt the full force of the impact.

The ship’s sublight engine kicked in. Tarina reached over and activated her ship’s thrusters to control the rapid descent.

“The arena’s playing field looks empty,” announced Wendy as she looked down at thermal image displayed on her console.

“How long until our friends arrive?” asked Tarina.

“Now!” responded Wendy. A large landing craft suddenly appeared several hundred meters directly above their heads, blocking out the silvery light from one of Derra-5’s moons.

Tarina banked over and lined up her craft to land in the schoolyard as she had the last time. She reached up to key her mic to talk to the landing craft but remembered that everything on the planet was still being jammed.

Wendy turned in her seat and looked behind. “Looks like they’ve slowed their fall and are going to make a smooth landing in the arena.”

Tarina felt a wave of relief wash over her. As she brought her craft down, she could see the fires raging all along the riverfront. It looked like a scene straight out of hell. Her thoughts instantly turned to Sheridan. She wondered if he was down there amongst the flames. She tried to block her thoughts and concentrated on landing her ship safely. 

A cordon of heavily armed soldiers met the Avenger while Tarina popped open the cockpit, removed her helmet and climbed down onto the snow-covered ground. A sergeant greeted Tarina and asked her to follow him to the headquarters.

At the arena, the second the landing craft touched down, all of the exits opened. Hundreds of Marines carrying all of their equipment on their backs sprinted out. They had ten seconds to disembark. Even if not all of the men were off in ten, the doors were closing and the landing craft was heading back to the fleet.

A sergeant at the front exit counted down on the landing craft’s PA system. He grinned when he saw that they were going to make it. The last soldier was out the door with two seconds left to spare. Automatically the doors slid closed and the landing craft began to lift back up into the night sky. An automated voice told the crew to prepare