Read Freehold for Free Online Page A

shape of the shuttle, the men running in and out of it, and the people who were fighting and dying all around. He felt sick as he watched an old man take two hits and still manage to stick his knife in a pirate throat. He saw children cut down by energy weapons, and men in armor jumping a barricade of bodies to surround a woman and her child. Then the holo went dark and it was over.
    For a long moment, no one spoke. Finally, Kasten cleared his throat, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke, “And that, Colonel, is why we need you.”

Chapter Three

    Corporal Flynn listened to the rattle of automatic-weapons fire, and the heavier crump of grenades, and wondered what to do. Everything had gone smoothly up till now. While the ride on the transcar passed without incident, she'd decided to get off two stops early just in case, and her caution had paid off. The moment they'd left the transcar she'd heard the sounds of battle. From the sound of it, HQ was under attack. She immediately tried to make radio contact, first with HQ, and then with Colonel Stell, but all the freqs were still jammed. She was on her own.
    As they moved cautiously through deserted streets, the sounds of fighting gradually grew louder. When she figured they were within half a mile of base, she called a halt and scouted around until she found a small, burned-out duracrete building. The walls were thick enough to take some punishment; and there were enough windows to permit defensive fire. The open ground surrounding the building was covered with rubble and garbage, not enough to provide attackers with cover, but maybe just enough to slow them down. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. She watched as the wounded were placed inside and made comfortable. They were her responsibility. The brigade never left its wounded.
    She remembered the pain in her leg where the round had ripped through her flesh—like a bad muscle cramp, only worse. They'd been packed into the chopper like sardines. The doors had been taken off to make it easier to load wounded. They were about to lift when Colonel Strom had staggered up to the chopper with a wounded soldier over his shoulder. She'd seen the pain etched in his features as he'd heaved the trooper into the crowded interior.
    She'd heard the pilot as he leaned across his dead co-pilot's body and yelled over the urgent whine of the turbines: “Leave him, Colonel. He ain't gonna make it anyway, and I'm overloaded already.”
    The pilot had suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a huge slug gun. “Either we all go ... or we all stay ... which is it gonna be, son?” The pilot had looked up from the gun into eyes just as black, and turned wordlessly back to his controls. Then Colonel Strom had climbed aboard and pulled the wounded trooper further away from the door.
    The engines had been wound up tight, screaming under the strain, as the ship had wobbled into the sky. She had watched the trickle of blood dripping out the door quickly become a spray, making thousands of tiny red dots against the side of the aircraft as it limped toward base.
    As Strom had sat down, wedging himself between two bodies, she had seen the pain in his eyes as he looked out at the endless carpet of broken men and machines which passed below. Hundreds of their people were dead or dying—all to settle doctrinal differences between two branches of New Covenant's single church.
    Suddenly, the Colonel's eyes had met hers and he smiled. “Looks like you caught one, trooper. Doesn't look too bad though. A few days in an automedic and that leg'll be as good as new.”
    For the first time, she'd noticed the dark stain across the front of his uniform. “I'm fine, sir ... but you've been hit bad. Can I help?”
    Colonel Strom had shook his head and coughed, the brassy taste of blood filling his mouth. “No thanks, trooper. I'll be fine. Could use a little nap, though. But somebody's got to watch our friend up front.” He indicated the native