Resistance ssg vanhorn s.., p.1
Resistance: SSG Vanhorn Series Book 3, page 1
Resistance
SSG Vanhorn Series Book 3
Toby Neighbors
Resistance (SSG Vanhorn Series Book 3)
Copyright © 2021 by Toby Neighbors
Published by Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC
Post Falls, Idaho
ISBN: 978-1-952260-27-8
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Copy Editor: Gabrielle Guarracino
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Author’s Note
Also by Toby Neighbors
Prologue
The waste removal tunnels beneath New Lonn City on Luyten C were as dark as caves. Our LCD headlamps, worn strapped to our combat helmets, shone weakly in the oppressive blackness of the tunnels, lending just enough light to lead us through the foul muck that coated the tunnels.
“I think Dallas just tossed his cookies again,” Corporal Yeveti whispered.
“Maybe that’ll teach him to stop pigging out before every engagement,” Lance Corporal Green said.
“Let’s focus,” I chided the group. Although I didn’t really mind the chatter, we were approaching the ladder marked 2871, our point of entry into the Orrkasi-controlled section of the city. It was time to make the transition from nervous chatter to business.
“That’s it, Sarg,” PFC Choi said.
“I see it,” I replied. “Everyone check your weapons one last time. We are entering hostile territory.”
It never even crossed my mind to order someone else to take the lead. Being a TAC sergeant wasn’t for the faint of heart. There were Orcs above us at that moment, no doubt, pacing the streets that they controlled. I didn’t like the strategy being employed, even while I knew it wasn’t completely without merit. We had a chance to avoid a skirmish, as the orbital surveillance showed that the section we were moving into had few, if any, enemy soldiers stationed there. Most were either watching the perimeter of their newly acquired section of our colony or aiming their surface-to-air artillery at the skies, where they expected the main force of the Marines to emerge.
My own LAR, a high-powered laser rifle, was fully charged and showed no error codes on the tiny display where the stock folded out. I checked the safety—still on. I didn’t want to accidentally shoot one of my own as I climbed the metal rungs built into the concrete wall of the tunnel.
“Bravo Leader,” I said to Sergeant Tragger, pressing the transmission button on my throat mic com-link, “what’s your position? Over.”
“We’re right on your six, Charlie. We’ll move forward and secure the tunnel for your egress. Over.”
“Copy that,” I said. “I’m going up to take a look at the situation above us. Over.”
“Good luck, Van,” Sergeant Tragger said. “Give ’em hell. Bravo standing by.”
I looked at my corporals, Yeveti and Dallas, the fire team leaders directly under my command. Each led a team of four Marines. My own team consisted of Lance Corporal Green, PFC Choi, and PFC Honrey. Twelve Marines, even TAC operators, couldn’t hold off an invasion force of well over a thousand Orcs. That wasn’t our job, though, I thought to myself grimly: our job was to disrupt the aliens and shift their focus away from our drop ships. The only way to do that was to pick a fight. I hated the thought of putting my people in danger, which was why I would be the first out of the tunnel and the last one back through.
“Here we go, people. This is what we train for. You see an Orc, you kill that Orc,” I said.
“Hell yeah,” Yeveti said.
I started up the rungs, and my squad fell silent. Every cell in my body seemed to be standing at attention. I knew what was coming: not just a fight, but a desperate, all-out battle for survival. It would be the worst engagement of my life. My mouth was dry, and I felt sick to my stomach. I struggled to compose myself so that I wouldn’t let my Marines see my fear. We had a job to do, and I was determined to carry it out with precision and efficiency.
At the top of the tunnel, a small, round disk of heavy cast iron covered the exit from the tunnel. I pushed up, straining beneath the weight of the manhole cover. It was heavy, and the metal ground against the surrounding concrete as I lifted it high enough to get a peek outside. The light was bright enough to make me squint. A feeling of complete vulnerability came over me. I felt exposed in that moment, struggling to see, my rifle down in the tunnel while my head was poking up. Fortunately, there was no one around to see me; the street was completely deserted.
I lifted the disk up and slid it out of the way. The sound of the metal dragging over the road was loud in my ears and grated on my raw nerves. There was no turning back at that point. Moving quickly, I climbed out of the waste removal tunnel and got to my feet. My hands took hold of the grips on my LAR. I brought the weapon to my shoulder, flicking off the safety and turning a complete circle as Green followed me out of the tunnel.
“Clear,” I said.
“Roger that,” Green said. “Charlie is clear to proceed.”
I moved over to the side of the road and up onto the sidewalk. The building beside me was an empty factory. There were windows high up on the walls, but at street level, it was solid. I took a knee, watching for any signs of the enemy as the rest of my squad climbed out of the manhole and spread to either side of the street.
“Alpha squad, this is Charlie squad. We are in position—over.”
“What’s your sit-rep, Charlie Squad? Over.” The young lieutenant’s voice snapped in my earpiece as if he were right beside me, not safely five kilometers away on overwatch.
“No sign of the enemy yet, LT. It’s quiet here.”
“Very good. Get your charges set and report back. I will give you the ‘go, no go’ when the Fleet is ready. Getty out.”
“You heard the man,” I told my squad. “Yeveti, you move south. Dallas, take your team north. Set explosive charges and then return here.”
They set off, doing their duty. All the while, my gut told me it was a suicide mission. I had just sent eight Marines out into harm’s way. All it would take was one Orc to catch sight of them, and we would be in for a fight that could quickly get out of hand. On the other hand, there were hundreds of Fleet Marines on drop ships waiting for a signal that it was safe to land. I wasn’t sure how one squad was supposed to ensure that the Orrkasi invasion force didn’t notice dozens of our drop ships breaking orbit, but I was determined to give it my all.
“Sergeant, I’ve got movement up ahead,” Green sent over the com-link. “Looks like a small patrol.”
“Are your charges set?” I asked.
“Affirmative. Finishing up now.”
“Very good,” I said. “Lie low, no nee—”
The sound of laser fire interrupted my order. There was shouting in the street, and I knew we had been discovered.
“Lieutenant Getty, we’ve been spotted,” I said over the com-link.
There was a momentary pause. I knew the young lieutenant was probably cursing my name. He was a fool if he thought I was challenging the Orrkasi just to spite his well-laid plan. It was a stupid, immature thought on his part, and it made me even angrier that he wouldn’t reply immediately. After all, we were the ones with our necks out, not him. When he finally replied, his voice was tight, and I imagined him speaking through clenched teeth.
“Very well, Charlie squad. Remember, you must hold your position until I give you word to fall back. Is that clear, Sergeant Vanhorn? Over.”
“Clear, sir,” I said, as three Marines from Dallas’s fire team came around the corner half a block from my position.
I watched for Corporal Alvin Green, but I never saw him again.
Chapter One
“What do you see, Staff Sergeant?” Petty Officer Trip Malik asked.
Without our trusty scout drone, I was forced to climb a hill and scan the area around the mountain where our base camp was located. Trip and I had been sent to salvage usable goods from the wreckage of the Rihla. The rest of its survivors were hidden in a mountain cavern at the end of the range, protected by foothills. I was within sight of that mountain after being pursued by the Orrkasi. We had only managed to escape by discovering an abandoned underground city deep inside a mountain nearly forty kilometers from the base camp. The plan was to move the survivors to the underground city, which we were calling Havvar, courtesy of Mook, our Polytrot friend who had discovered and named the city. Mook was with Trip, waiting at the base of the hill I was on. The only problem was the collection of Orrkasi troopers mobilizing on the open plain beyond the foothills.
“Eight transports,” I said, using the com-link built into the helmet of the heavy armor suit I was wearing. Its inner lining kept my body temperature comfortable even in the heat of the
“And hundreds of Orcs,” I continued. “They’re not moving yet. There must be more of them on the way.”
“Damn, how many troopers can they have?” Trip complained.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they had more reinforcements.”
We knew of only one Orrkasi settlement on the planet; that didn’t mean there weren’t more. There could be hundreds, spread across the face of Leonis B. The Rihla had only been in orbit for a few minutes before we’d been shot down by the Orrkasi planetary defense laser. I had taken out one such weapon by sneaking into the Orrkasi camp and planting explosives around their secret weapon, and we had no way of knowing how many others they might have built. We didn’t have the resources to perform a thorough search of the planet—we were too occupied with staying alive.
“Can you reach the base camp?” Trip asked.
“Not without being seen,” I said. “Still might try something. We have to help.”
We were still a long way out from the mountains, barely in the foothills on the canyon side. Between us and the base camp were open ground and several deep canyons, and the Orcs had gunships hovering like bees protecting a hive.
“I think you’re being rash,” Trip said. “If we can’t get to our people, how can we help them?”
“We don’t have to get there,” I said. “We just need to get close enough for our com-links to reach them. Trix will have hers on. If we get close enough, we’ll coordinate our efforts to fight off the Orrkasi and move our people to Havvar.”
“You make it sound simple,” Trip said.
It was anything but. The only thing that made this situation easier was our Orrkasi cargo hauler, essentially a flatbed vehicle designed for moving heavy loads around. Otherwise, Trip had blown out his knee, and I still struggled with the wounds I had received on Luyten C just over a year before. Months of reconstructive surgeries and physical therapy had gotten me back on my feet, but I wasn’t fast or strong. My entire left side had taken damage, and I wasn’t even close to the man I had been, physically or mentally. Despite that, I was still TAC-qualified, and with the cargo hauler, I was more mobile than the other survivors.
“It actually is simple,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”
“You have a plan?” Trip asked. “And don’t give me that TAC team bullshit, like, ‘Just kill ’em all.’ I’d like to live, if you don’t mind.”
“I want to live too,” I said. “We’ll figure it out—somehow draw the Orrkasi away from our people. We need to find out if they’re able to move the sick. That’s the real issue.”
A strange illness had befallen our group after we had rescued nearly thirty hostages from the Orrkasi camp. I had suffered from the fever but pulled through. Some of the others, weakened from long captivity, had not. When Trip and I had set out on our mission, several people were still struck with the illness.
I couldn’t crawl on my bad knee, so I rolled onto my backside and scooted down the hill until I could stand up and walk without worrying that the Orcs might see me. So far, they had underestimated us, and we had more tricks up our sleeves than they knew. There were explosives hidden in the hills close to the mountain, and we still had auto cannons hidden in the caves leading up toward the cavern where we’d made our base camp. On the other hand, the Orrkasi had hundreds of troopers, and we didn’t have enough fighters to hold them off for long.
I looked at Trip. “Now we circle back, get into the canyon closest to the mountains, and try to make contact with our people.”
I boarded the cargo hauler, which had an enormous bench seat for the driver and one other passenger. It made sense, given the normal passengers: Orcs were twice as wide as humans, with thick bodies, massive legs, and unmatchable strength. I had seen them leap onto humans and rip them apart with their pointed teeth. The thought of being that close to an Orc made my skin break out in goosebumps.
“How much time you reckon we’ve got before they attack?” Trip asked.
“That’s hard to say,” I replied. “At least we can be pretty sure they don’t know where our base camp is. If they did, they would hit the mountain from the air—soften us up with their gunships.”
“We took out their gunships before,” Trip pointed out. “Maybe they’re holding back.”
“If they didn’t want to use their gunships, they wouldn’t have sent them,” I said. “Still, I think we’ve got some time.”
It took several minutes to navigate through the foothills that surrounded the mountain range. Eventually, we reached the canyon and found a way down. The cargo hauler was a repulsor vehicle, but unlike our gear carrier, it had no self-leveling feature. We had to search out a path into the canyon that was gradual.
The sides of the canyons were different from the desert plains and foothills. Smooth stones that seemed to roll together led down to the lush canyon floors, where water was abundant. There were all kinds of flora in the canyon bottoms, from fruit bushes to trees to grass. The trees on Leonis B had no leaves, so it was hard to tell the season; I judged the hemisphere we were in to be in the late autumn.
We were able to cruise through the canyon without worrying about being seen. The sounds of more Orrkasi aircraft could be heard, not yet close to the mountains. As Trip had pointed out, they had learned to respect our sniper fire. The Orrkasi gunships and transports had transparent canopies over their cockpits, and the laser blasts from our Gnashii rifles could take out their pilots. Knowing this, the Orcs weren’t taking chances. They kept their distance from the mountains and foothills, which gave us time to approach the base camp.
When we reached the end of the canyon, I looked up, wondering if it was even possible for me to climb. It wasn’t like climbing a mountain, and it was at least four hundred meters up to the desert plains, which would put a major strain on my bad leg. Trip couldn’t even walk, much less climb. If the distance forced us to ascend, we would have to take the cargo hauler back and find a way up the slope.
“Corporal Finnegan,” I said, activating my com-link. “Do you copy? Over.”
There was a burst of static, then a male voice responded.
“This is Sergeant Barker. Identify yourself. Over.”
Anger flooded through me. I didn’t have the best track record with Sergeant Theo Barker. On the Rihla, he had taken every opportunity to ridicule me. His derision had softened after my friend and lieutenant, Jordan Holly, and I had rescued him from the Orrkasi, but it didn’t take long before he became belligerent again.
“This is Staff Sergeant Eli Vanhorn,” I said. “Barker, where is Finnegan? Over.”
“Finnegan is on sentry duty,” Barker said. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re about to be attacked by an overwhelming force. Where the hell have you been? Over.”
There was no point in continuing the argument: Barker was a bully. I could only imagine how he had ended up with Trix’s heavy, protective armor suit. For the time being, it wasn’t important. More pressingly, we needed to coordinate a plan to get the survivors from the Rihla out of the caverns before the Orrkasi attacked.
“That doesn’t matter—we’re here now,” I said. “We’ve found a place to move everyone to, if we can get you out of the mountain without being seen. Have you got someone watching the explosives I set? Over.”
“Yeah, we’re not complete idiots,” Barker replied. “Fat chance of us moving without being seen. The Orcs have ships in the area and thousands of troopers. Lieutenant Burrows is preparing to send out an envoy with terms for our surrender. So excuse me if I don’t waste my time listening to your stammering, harebrained plans. None of us want to die on this rock.”
“And you think the Orcs will let you live?” I snapped.
