“Charlie Six, this is Item Three Six,” Seargent Tashha Cole said, tripping the communications link to the task force commander. Faster than a man could blink, her helmet transmitted the words to the communications suite of her combat car, Indigo Girl. Without a perceptible pause the cars electronics fired it up to a commo satellite, which then relayed it back down to the task force commander. Captain Torren, officer commanding taskforce Tambre, sat in the armoured turret of a tank some sixty kilometres distant.

“Natives seem restive, but nothing overtly threatening going on,” she continued. The thirty ton, iridium armoured, combat car slid slowly down the paved roadway, held aloft by the cushion of air in the plenum chamber. Civilians gave it a wide berth. People felt their mortality when they were close to a howling monster like a combat car, which, she supposed, was the point. Her wing gunner panned his weapon, a heavy tri-barrel power gun across, the crowd in the middle of the square. They did their best to ignore it. They had spilled out of the mosque after prayer and doubtlessly their contempt and hostility for the foreign mercenaries was at its height, whipped up by preachers in the pay of the Wheat Barons.

Hammer’s Slammers had come to Trabzon three months before. Hired, for a change, to stop conflict from breaking out. Trabzon had become wealthy these past few generations, mostly by electronics manufacture and some limited agriculture. They exported to worlds that couldn’t afford to by premium equipment from places like Calth or New Friezeland, cashing in on those more desperate than themselves. As always, money had bought with it it’s own problems. Trabzon had traditionally been ruled by a tight knit oligarchy of rural magnates. Wheat Barons as they were known, who had largely missed out on the new wave of economic prosperity. The result was a rising urban elite who were slowly displacing the traditional leaders. Exacerbating the problem was the religious unrest. Trabzon had been settled largely from Turkey and the Islamic tradition, long dormant when they colonists had been fighting for their lives against the hunger and privation of the early days, had returned full force. The Wheat Barons spent a lot of time denouncing the nuevo riche urbanites as decedent and apostate and out here in the region capital of Calnagah it was working.

President Jamal Israhimi had recently come to power but the general feeling was that he had stolen the election by a mixture of intimidation, bribery and outright fraud. He believed that the presence of the Slammers would prevent any serious hostility from breaking out and it seemed to Cole that he had been right. Her platoon, third platoon I company, had spent the majority of that time just driving around, letting themselves be seen. Occasionally there were reports of dissident gatherings in the woods and I-3 would make a sweep of the forest, usually discovering a few intoxicated ‘rebels’, a few burned out campfires and buggerall else. It was easy money, a rest for the Slammers after their last few contracts, heavy fighting had taken its toll on vehicles and men. This was a chance to train new troops and replenish losses in a relatively safe, if unprofitable, peacekeeping role.

Calagahn was an ugly city. Its population of a few hundred thousand squatted on the eastern edge of the world’s only continent. It served as the transport hub for a large hinterland, its extensive spaceport allowing the gigantic bulk haulers to settle down, collect crops and minerals from the interior and carry them to market wherever they should be required. The architecture was largely adobe or knock off industrial plastic versions of adobe, bringing to mind childhood tales of the Arabian nights. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that the place as located on a tropical flatland, rather than a desert, but it didn’t seem to bother the Trabzonis unduly.

The people themselves dressed in loose robes often cinched up around their waists with colourful silken cords. Supposedly, there was a whole language that went on with the cords, conveying status, political affiliation, and profession. Cole didn’t care, after four years in the Slammers, she had ceased to care about the peculiarities of her employers, reserving her attention for the capabilities of her enemies.

“Roger that Item three-six,” came Torren’s voice over the commo circuit.

“I doubt…” whatever Torren doubted remained a mystery as, with shocking suddenness, an alarm claxon began to wail. A panic seized the crowd as people began to push and shove each other in their haste to leave the square. In her peripheral vision Cole saw her gunners tighten their grips on their tri-barrels, transforming from bored caution to laser focused alertness.

“Charlie Six…” she began but Torern’s voice came back, the AI squelching her transmission in favour of a more senior officer.

“All Tambre elements, Camp Abel is reporting distress signals from a bulk freighter, it is attempting an emergency landing at the space port." Instinctively, Cole craned her neck to look skyward. Nothing was visible to her naked eye. She flicked a control in her helmet with her tongue, switching the view to infrared. Sure enough there was a pulsing heat signal up there, plasma discharge from a large starship.

“Item three six,” Cole began, keying the link to her platoon. Only six combat cars after the heavy casualties they had endured on their last assignment.

“Three-two and, Three- three, move west to the heights above the governor’s residence, see if you can get some trajectory data on this ship so we can avoid it if it augurs in.” She was about to give her own driver orders when her infrared view gave her a brief flicker of movement on a nearby rooftop. Just the kind of flicker you got when someone in camo-cloth shifted or moved too rapidly. Camo-cloth was a sophisticated synthetic material used by commandos providing near invisibility when the user was stationary. If not for her visor being set to infrared, she would never have seen a thing.

“Bandits!” she yelled, hauling on her tri-barrel, trying to swing the big weapon around to point at the suddenly revealed target. Before she could overcome the inertia of the big gun a bloom of heat flashed on her visor. A moment later there was a colossal bang as something tore through the splinter shield with a sound like mountains screaming. Indigo Girl slammed sideways as if struck by a giant anvil. Metal shrieked and buckled around her. With spectacular violence the rear nacelle blew itself apart. Electrical lightning leapt and danced through the crew compartment, whickering like pale fire over the burning electronics. Her left wing gunner screamed and pitched away from his gun with a flash of scarlet as something ricocheted through his chest. A giant explosion pitched the crippled combat car into the air, slamming Coles’s ceramic armour against her chest. She screamed, but the sound was a weak anemic thing against the destruction of the combat car. The noise was unimaginable, the fans slaming into the casing, the crowds screaming, her helmet cut in sound cancellation to try to save her hearing.

Dimly she was aware of other sounds, fans howling as they went into the red, powerguns firing, buzzbombs snapping. With a warbling scream the combat car’s surviving nacelle slammed it into one of the cheap prefab buildings, a shop of some kind. Thirty tons of iridium armour smashed the flimsy structure to match wood. Dust billowed everywhere and the heat overload dumped Coles visor to save her eyes. Not that it helped, the air was opaque with a great billowing cloud of dust. With a rumbling crash several hundred tons of building collapsed on top of the stricken Indigo Girl and the last thing Cole saw before blacking out was an avalanche of concrete and wood rushing down to meet her.

Second Platoon, Dog Company, 2nd Battalion had two squads conducting presence patrols in Calagahn. The remaining two squads served as Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) on Camp Able. They were all mounted on Skimmers or A21 Jeeps and could haul ass at a moment's notice in either direction.

"Master Sergeant, Klinker," Lieutenant Vandervoort called to his Platoon Sergeant. "What is the personnel status of the platoon?"

The 38 year old professional soldier looked over his notes on the data pad attached to his left arm. "Authorized Strength, forty-six, on hand strength, forty-two sir," the older NCO responded with the strength of the platoon. "We had four men on sick call this morning. Private Shook, First squad is in the hospital recovering from a broken wrist. PFC Rotman, 2nd squad came down with a strain of influenza. Private Teuben, 3rd Squad is recovering from a right ankle sprain and PFC Groot, 4th Squad is suffering from a bad case of food poisoning."

"Any word on when they may be back?"

"Well, sir. Shook is out for at least three months. The docs have Rotman on meds and could be back as soon as three days from now.Teuben may need another two weeks before he is good to go and Groot should receive a clean bill of health tomorrow."

"What about vehicles?"

"As it turns out, four of our Skimmers are in the motor pool having their battery packs replaced. We've cross loaded skimmers so that the four soldiers on sick call, who have working skimmers are now in the possession of those soldiers who have skimmers in maintenance." The platoon sergeant went over the vehicle maintenance problems in the platoon.

"Tell me about Operations, Master Sergeant," the Platoon Leader addressed the NCO.

"As you know, the 1st Squad is in the market district, 4th squad is only about a mile from Sergeant Kunst's squad. 2nd and 3rd squads are with us here on Camp Able waiting to see if anything happens. They are hanging out in the day room with strict orders to go nowhere.

"Good, thank you, Sergeant Klinker." Second Lieutenant Michel Vandervoort had been platoon Leader for one month and it was questionable whether or not he shaved daily. His peach fuzz appeared to be on the light and wispy side. The Lieutenant joined the Slammers almost four years ago and is eagerly awaiting his promotion to First Lieutenant. As it turned out, the platoon members were one hundred percent of Dutch descent. They spoke Dutch, but also spoke English. They even had platoon members who spoke the Turkish and Arabic languages. These soldiers were of high value when they needed to communicate with the locals.

The Lieutenant listened to the radio as the Task Force Commander, Captain Torren's voice crackled over the radio. All Tambre elements, Camp Able is reporting distress signals from a bulk freighter, it is attempting an emergency landing at the space port." The lieutenant looked up into the sky and saw nothing. He was not wearing his helmet. Master Sergeant Klinker on the other hand, put his helmet back on his head and flipped the switch to infra red. He could see the bulk freighter in distress, immediately overhead.

"Sir, I strongly recommend we relocate the RRF and ourselves away from where we are right now," the platoon sergeant spoke with stern even tones, attempting to communicate the dire emergency of the situation.

"I don't see anything Sergeant," the lieutenant responded. "The Captain doesn't know what he is talking about."

"Put your helmet, on Lieutenant!" The sergeant exclaimed to the young officer.

The butter bar understood, complied and saw the problem. He keyed his mic in his handset. "All Dagger elements, a bulk freighter is having problems over Camp Able and may impact with the planet. The RRF is relocating to Rally Point fife six. All squads respond, Over."

Sergeant Kunst heard the call on the radio, looked up in the direction of Able, spotting the distressed freighter. Using a hand and arm signal, he brought the column of seven skimmers and one jeep to a halt in one of the busiest areas of the market place. "Dagger Six, this is Dagger one, roger that, Calagahn Market sector, out."

Sergeant Rocks began yelling at his second squad members in the day room. The nine soldiers pulled their gear on while the Third squad members did the same. They all ran outside together. The squad leaders yelled at the platoon leader as they ran by him to get on their skimmers; notifying them they were complying.

This wasn't good enough for the Lieutenant. "Rocks and Tanis, respond over the radio in sequence!"

Both NCOs looked annoyed, but complied. "Dagger Six, this is Dagger Two, roger out."

"Dagger six, this is Dagger Three, roger out," sergeant Tanis spoke into his head set.

Naturally, their communications check allowed the Lieutenant to know their radios were working fine and it also let the fourth squad leader know it was his turn.

Sergeant Bishop, fourth squad leader keyed his mic and spoke, "Dagger six, this is Dagger four, Financial District, roger out."

As Lieutenant Vandervoort lead the two RRF squads out and away from Camp Able, Sergeant Kunst decided to continue his patrol. With the infrared turned on, in his head set, he noticed an explosion inside the city, not far from his current location.

"First Squad!" Auggie Kunst yelled out. "Did you guys see that?" his head fixed in the direction of the explosion.

"Yea boss," PFC Drakos responded. Other soldiers answered affirmative, but a couple held out as the clueless few.

"Mount up and follow me. Oonk, keep that jeep close behind me. Felton, don't fire unless I tell you to. Corporal Schroeder, you take up the rear. Let's roll!" The squad leader yelled as they headed to investigate the explosion.

As the Slammer's rifle squad raced toward third platoon, Ida Company, Sergeant Kunst called Lieutenant Vandervoort on the radio to inform him of his observations and intentions to investigate. The Lieutenant then ordered Sergeant Bishop to converge on First Squad and assist. He then began to move the RRF to within one kilometer of where First and fourth squads were headed.

Corporal Buren squeezed the butterfly triggers of his tri-barrel in a death grip as he raked the heavy weapon across the building front. Chunks of burning adobe the size of basketballs belew free with explosive violence as they bolts lashed the walls. The mineral deposits in the sand sparkled and blazed in the cyan bursts, at the temperature of copper plasma, nearly everything burned. The building shuddered like a whipped horse with each successive hammer blow. The bandits, two or three of them on the upper story, had ceased firing for a moment.

“Item Three-Four to all Sla…,” the moment the link opened the cacophony of broad spectrum jamming howled in his helmet. After a second the AI cut it out, acknowledging the signal as gibberish. That was very bad. It meant that not only were the enemy using jamming equipment sophisticated enough to block the car's variety of radio transmission systems, which was plenty fucking bad, but also that the wogs had taken out the Slammers communications satellites. That suggested that these were expensive professionals, not some half assed local militia. As if summoned by the thought one of the camo-cloth clad figures leaped into the street, leveling a buzz bomb at the combat car. Without sparing it a thought Bruen dragged his fire across the man. His arms and legs flew sideways as the cyan bolts tore into his chest in a splash of superheated steam and cooked meat.

“Booster!” he yelled triggering the combat cars AI.

“Anti jamming protocol, broadcast on all freqs and in the open,” he commanded. A soft electronic tone told him the AI had complied. Still no assurance it would reach anyone. Bugger all that it would get to command, but maybe the local units might get something.

“Item Three Four to all Slammers Elements, Bandits in the city with buzzbombs and cammo cloth. We are two cars down and withdrawing west.” Bullets , electromagnetic slug throwers, began to ring on the hull. He wanted to look for the source but that was the responsibility of the gunners covering that sector.

The fans howled as the big vehicles rocket westward. Bullets rang around him like bells on the iridium armor. Behind him he heard a scream and something hot and wet sprayed across his back. He risked a quick glance around to see Wiggins slumped across his gun, a gaping wound in his neck where a lucky slug had struck.

“Chalkin,” he shouted at the driver, “Get us the fuck out of here!” Shockingly Chalkins angled his fans horizontal, sacrificing the lift the car had gained. It fell like an iridium anvil, gouging a deep trough into the dusty street. Buren’s ceramic armor smashed into his thighs, leaving bruises that would be real damn impressive in the morning. Assuming he lived that long of course.

“What the fuck are you…!” Buren began to shout but Chalkin ‘s response was lost as he poured every watt of power to the fans. The engines shrieked and dirt in the plenum chamber blew out in all directions like a bomb. Blinding all but the most sophisticated scanners for a few crucial seconds. The combat car slew viciously right and rocketed down the alley at a speed any instructor would consider suicidal. Instructors didn’t learn under combat conditions though and the definition of suicide was surprisingly elastic.

“Item Three,” Buren shouted, hoping the other cars could hear him.

“Get off the street, bandits are laying for us.” They shot out of the self inflicted dust cloud like a rocket, racing across a smaller square. Buren dragged his tri-barrels across a group of men. It registered for a moment that only one of them was carrying a weapon. Maybe just a panicking local, and maybe not. Dead, certainly.

This was bad, he caught a glimpse of iridium as one of the other cars raced past an alley on the other side of the square. At least he wasn’t the only one left. The enemy were still firing sporadically from the upper floors. There must be hundreds of them. Snuck into town a little at a time during the various pilgrimages, hidden god knows where until they were ready to strike. Now they had the high ground. Combat cars were vulnerable from above, where the angle of attack was too extreme for the close in defense system to protect them. That is how Sgt Cole and Corporal Artevelder had bought it. A third of Item Three’s strength gone in a heartbeat. The gods only knew what else the enemy had in store.

As if tempted by his words a massive explosion rocked the adobe city, shattering windows and kicking up even more dust.

“Jehovah’s balls what was that?”

First Squad, 2nd Platoon, Dog Company rushed in to where third platoon, I Company were pulling back to. "Lay down a base of fire!" Sergeant Kunst wanted to cover their withrdawal. The Slammer grunts dismounted their skimmers, spreading out on foot to find cover, whatever was available. The jeep containing two soldiers and an automatic grenade launcher began pumping out 40mm grenades at a cyclic rate of three rounds per second. Small 5 meter diameter explosions creating a swath of deathly grey circles between the retreating Armored Cars and the suspected threat. The other seven solders of the squad added their 20mm assault rifle fire to the mix, attempting to pin down whatever threat was out there.

Shortly, after the grunts arrived, rendering assistance to their friends in I company, everyone heard the message from the third platoon leader, “Item Three Four to all Slammers Elements, Bandits in the city with buzzbombs and cammo cloth. We are two cars down and withdrawing west.”

The remaining elements of the third platoon made it out safe and within two minutes, fourth squad, Dog Company arrived to assist the first squad. The fourth squad's jeep had a buzz bomb instead of an AGL. Sergeant Biship ordered his squad to fill in with the first squad members as he spoke with Sergeant Kunst.

"Have you made contact with the I company Platoon Leader yet?"

"No Hansen, I have not," Gottfried Kunst yelled to his fellow squad leader. "Take charge of the two squads, I will seek out the Armor Car PL and report to the LT." Kunst looked down range, pointing at the adobe style building where most of the fire was coming from. HE pointed from their vantage point toward the building, "keep up an intense volume on that building. Don't let anyone out! I'll let you know once I speak to their PL!" Bishop nodded his head, rendered a thumbs up and checked the positions of the two squad members. He made a few adjustments to insure someone was watching both flanks of their support by fire position.

Gottfried Kunst ran back to the armored Kunst just as an intensive explosion rippled through the city of adoby style buildings. Many windows disintegrated as a wave of heat and dust passed across the infantry firing on the building.

Sergeant Kunst fell to a prone position and jumped back onto his feet, trying to utter, 'what the f---?' when he heard someone to his front exclaim, "Jehovah’s balls what was that?”

"My sentiments exactly," Sergeant Kunst stated as he caught up to Corporal Artevelder. "Hey Corporal, where's your Platoon Leader?" The Corporal tossed a thumb over his shoulder pointing to one of the other cars. Kunst ran to the vehicle in order to find whoever the element leader was.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Vandervoort and Sergeant Klinker raced across the stretch of open ground between Camp Able and Calagahn. The gun fire from inside the city was picked up on the HUDs of their helmets. They could see his two squads engaged with the unknown enemy. They heard the transmission from the I Company Platoon.

"Dagger one, this is Dagger three, SITREP, over," the Platoon Leader reached out to his first squad leader in Calagahn.

"Dagger six, attempting to establish contact with the Indigo element. Will give you a thorough SITREP after that conversation. Continue to within two hundred mikes of our position, how copy, over."

"Dagger one, Dagger Six, roger out," the lieutenant accepted the Sergeant's situation report as is and left him to develop the situation. The Lieutenant then turned to the second and third squads, waved an arm forward as the fourteen skimmers and four jeeps headed down the city streets toward the contact point. They were actually further to the south of the contact and halted three city blocks from the objective building. "Park your skimmers here, we'll go in on foot. Keep the jeeps in a support role behind the squads, Second on the left and third on the right."

"Sir, Sergeant Kunst said to halt back two hundred meters and await for his sitrep," Master Sergeant Klinker reminded the brand new second lieutenant.

"Sergeant," Lieutenant Vandervoort turned abruptly to the 38 year old NCO with fifteen years with the Slammers. "I am well aware of what the First squad leader told me. I happen to believe that if we don't get into this fight ASAP, it will be over before it is started. If you don't mind, remain with the support vehicles and insure they find excellent vantage points to place suppressive fire from."

Sergeant Klinker was not one to mince words with his platoon leader, even if he had only been in the army all day. "Sir, yes sir!" The Master Sergeant executed an about face and double timed back to the jeeps as the Lieutenant took the dismounted squads forward. "Don't get your balls blown off, dick head," Sergeant Klinker muttered under his breath so no one heard him before hopping into his jeep driven by Private Willem Sellers.

"Follow the infantry, Sellers," Klinker ordered the Private, "but not too close."

Corporal Buren breathed a sigh of relief as the combat cars raced through the line of Slammer’s Infantry. Vehicle crewmen viewed infantry as borderline suicidal, going into battle with no more protection than a suit of ceramic body armor but he knew from conversations with the grunts that they view vehicles as large, obvious death traps.

“Pull through Chalkin, Ill have to speak with the Grunt’s,” he yelled through the intercom. Gunfire still snapped behind them but the volume was definitely slacking now that the grunts were lighting up the buildings. It was remarkable how quickly the locals had cleared the streets. It always was. With a grunt he lifted himself over the side of the crew compartment and slid down the iridium armor with the ease of long practice, unslinging his 1cm sub machine gun as he hit the ground. An infantry man was rushing towards him, a faded name tape on his chest read ‘Kunst.’

“Glad to see you Sarge,” he yelled over the howl of fans, another combat car slid into view, followed by another. Insurgent and Idiot Child. Four cars left it seemed, although Trooper Caldwin’s Idiot Child was dragging some frenching behind it like a dragons tail. Looked like it had a nacelle out too, by the way it kept scraping the ground on its port side.

“Bandits hit us with buzzbombs from the roofs, took out the Six and Five before we even knew they were there. I guess that makes me acting Six for Item Three. Looks like they knocked out the commo at the same time. I estimate at least a company of professional infantry plus god knows how many indge irregulars.”

He saw an ugly plume of smoke rising from the direction of the base camp.

“I reckon that freighter dropped something unpleasant on the FB, got to figure its hostile.”

“We got wounded too, via plenty of wounded, you got medics along?”

THere was the a distant shump, shump sound. The word “Mortars!!” tore from a dozen throats.

“Item, goose it!” Buren yelled into his helmet mike, they had to keep moving to avoid the shelling.

"Conserve ammunition!" Sergeant Bishop yelled at first and fourth squads repeatedly. "Aim first and then squeeze the trigger! Lighten up on that AGL!" The fourth squad leader walked back and forth encouraging the men on as Sergeant Kunst ran back to the hasty support by fire position.

Private Rutger Passet caught a round high on the left shoulder. It spun him around and knocked him back onto the dusty soil about eight feet away. PFC Larry Fokking flew through the air flipping end over end six times in rapid succession from the impact of a buzzbomb. His body slammed into one of the adobe stucco type building, killing him on impact.

Sergeant Kunst saw the two casualties yelling, "Medic! Take a look at these men!" He saw the platoon medic ducked behind a building. It was time for the one man who might be able to save some lives to go to work.

Sergeant Kunst looked at the target building. He could see a few dozen heads bobbing up and down from behind cover. Then he remembered the Lieutenant. "Dagger Six, this is Dagger one, SITREP, over."

"Dagger one, dagger six, send it, over," came the response.

"Dagger six, dagger one, we responded to a distress call from Indigo element. Provide supporting fires, they lost two vehicles in the kill zone. Target building is large adobe style stucco building to our east and north of your position. Estimate a hundred plus regular infantry and several dozen militia armed with a variety of small arms to include buzzbombs and RPGs. We have sustained one KIA and one WIA. Class V is diminishing as we speak. Recommend we break contact and link up at rally point Papa Bear three clicks south of here, over."

"Dagger one, this is dagger six, roger good copy. We are not going to break contact...." and then the radio went dead just as the Mortar rounds began impacting around second and third squad.

"Dagger six, this is a dagger one, over?" Sergeant Kunst spoke into the radio as mortar rounds landed in the city just south east of where he stood. He then turned to the fourth squad leader, "Bishop!" He yelled, "I think something is wrong with zero six. prepare the squads to unass the AO! We got mortars coming in on us." With the next explosion, the first squad's jeep was hit, Private Bastiaan Oonk and PFC Albert Felton were killed instantly. Their jeep and corpses were tossed fifty feet into the air. "Bishop! We need to get out of here now!"

Sergeant Bishop turned to acknowledge Sergeant Kunst. A round struck him in the neck, separating the man's head from his torso. The body belonging to Sergeant Hansen Biship stood erect for a full three seconds before it realized it no longer had a head telling it what to do. Kunst watched the man in horror as if time slowed down. It teetered and then faster and faster to the ground. It was a very odd sensation. He could no longer hear the screams from men being hit. He could no longer take his eyes of his friend's body. His arms did not extend as if to catch himself from falling.

Then he woke up. "Get out of here! Everyone Move! Back to your Skimmers, GO! GO! GO!" He yelled over and over at the survivors. "Run! Get your asses in gear!" Kunst was one of the last to leave. He keyed the mic again, "Dagger Six, this is dagger one, over,"

Finally a response came over the radio, "Dagger one this is dagger fife, Dagger six is KIA. I've ordered Dagger two and dagger three back to rally point Papa Bear. See you in fife mikes, over."

Sergeant Kunst caught up to his squad as they raced toward the skimmers. Mortar rounds were landing heavier in the area they just vacated. the soil was ripped up and the corpses of their friends were mixing with the sand and other debris being tilled in the afternoon heat. The squads arrived at the skimmers and took off heading south toward their rally point with the rest of the platoon.

Shortly after arriving, Master Sergeant Klinker and Sergeant Kunst set up a security perimeter and began collecting ACE reports from the squad leaders. ACE is an acronym for Ammunition, Casualties and Equipment.

Sergeant Kunst found his own squad in possession of fifty percent of its basic load of ammunition (BLA). He had six soldiers left, with Private Koenraad Price suffering from a broken left arm. He had suffered a through and through injury where the projectile passes through the limb and continues on to some other location. Second squad had four survivors including their jeep and their assistant squad leader, Corporal Jouke Rosen. Third squad consisted of seven survivors. PFC Gerard Kotts and Private Harold Lucius were KIA. The fourth squad now consisted of six men. They had two wounded soldiers, The Assistant Squad Leader, who was now their squad leader, Corporal Dedrick Schlief lost his helmet and suffered a laceration across his left cheek that ripped the top of his ear lobe off. Blood was gushing down his cheek and across his chin, but the medic was looking after it. The fourth squad jeep driver also took a hit in the right shoulder, but it was not enough to kill him. It was for the best part a minor flesh wound. The Platoon Headquarters only lost the Platoon Leader, Lieutenant Michel Vandervoort. The platoon was now down to twenty-six survivors. Everyone was panting excitedly. More than a few hands were shaking, not a calm nerve in the bunch.

"Charlie Six, this is Dagger fife, over," Master Sergeant Klinker called over the radio. He paused six seconds and tried again, "Charlie Six, this is Dagger fife, SITREP over." He tried a few more times and then gave up. He was getting no response. Sergeant Klinker looked at his NCO leadership who were huddled around him, "It looks like we are on our own boys. Whatever happened at Able, it don't look good. Whatever hit us in that town, ain't good either."

"Maybe we should link up with that armored car platoon," Sergeant Kunst recommended.

"Roger that, Gottfried," Sergeant Klinker responded. "I'll give them a call now and set up a rendezvous point."

The four combat cars balanced uneasily on the thrust of their fans. The firing from the crowd had slackened as the infantry withdrew. Doubtless the indginies were praising buddha or whoever the fuck for their victory Buren thought darkly. Well this wouldn’t be the first time the Slammers had been caughts with their pants down and their dicks swinging and they had come back before.

The sun was starting to set now, night bought with it the illusion of safety. It was still several hours from full dark when the Slammer's night vision kit would give them the advantage over the locals. The stink of burning petrochemicals was on the wind. SOmething was on fire already.

“Roger that Dagger Fife,” he called over the crackly comm link.

“We can withdraw west to the Memet river, booster 15 percent overlay,” an overlay of the topographic map formed over his vision at low opacity. A red line obediently traced what the computer postulated as the optimum route.

“From there I can take Item south to uhhhh….” the hill didn’t have a name on local maps, being little more than a large bald.

“Hill 23 X-Ray Romeo, we can get hull down and give you some cover as you withdraw down to the rally point. Lay some smoke for us with your mortars if you can. Commandos might have good sensors but we will fuck the locals.”

Buren looked across his battered cars. That starship was down now, Gods only knew what was on it. One of the other cars snapped a three round burst at some unseen target. They were conserving the barrels now, constant firing would errode the bores and no one knew when or if supplies would come in. His shoulders itched. Buren hated mortars with a passion.

“Booster transmit route to Dagger Fife and hold for approval.”

God damn Cole, where was the icy bitch when you needed her.