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laying down heavy fire as she sprinted past their position, the run being pretty rough on the lieutenant, then striding backwards in pace with her as they made for the treeline amidst heavy fire.
    Once into the trees, though, the fire quickly dropped off. The Ghoulies’ weapons were no better at engaging through trees than the humans’ were, and the aim of the infantry wasn’t remotely up to the standards of the Operators. Sorilla had to carry Crow, which slowed her down, but since few of the former prisoners were in any shape to run, and none of them had powered armor, it wasn’t appreciable.
    The three active Operators had to goad their charges on through a forced march up the size of the old rolling mountain. They followed the contours, but it was still tough going and a lot of the starving people fell in their tracks, unable to keep moving.
    Jardiens and Korman took up the stretchers, making them pile people four and five high or more, stacking bodies like cordwood. They couldn’t leave them there, but there was no stopping either. Sorilla did her part as well, slinging Crow across her back as she took up a third stretcher loaded with people.
    The healthy helped the infirm, and the three armored warriors served as pack mules for those who couldn’t move another step, and in that way the odd procession climbed the alien hills into the night.
    *****
    Hours later, there had been no immediate pursuit, and they were stopped near the top of one of the rolling hills. Mack had rejoined them about two hours into their escape, with the news that Corporal Able had bought it in the gravetic retaliation strike after their first shot. The loss hit them pretty hard, coming off the mission high as they were, so the four conscious and breathing Operators leaned back against the rock face where they and their charges had taken cover.
    The clock ran down, and almost on cue, they saw the first flashes of nuclear fire in the night sky. Spherical balls of light erupted above them, and they knew that the Fleet had arrived.
    “They’re even on time,” Sorilla said, smiling tightly.
    The others returned the smile, though wanly, as they watched the fireworks tear through the starry sky.
    A screaming sound tore through their ears as the first Kilo Kilo, or kinetic kill, weapon screamed down along the locator beam Korman had placed and tore apart the base even as the scrambling Ghoulies tried to get their control systems repaired. Several more shrieking strikes tore up the very ground around it as the Fleet destroyed the gravity valves, a prelude to a full planetary assault.
    The tide of war was shifting, Sorilla thought, a thin ray of optimism burning inside her. Five years of fighting on the defensive, and they were about to take one of the enemy’s worlds for their own. It wasn’t a vital world, she supposed, but it would be the first they took from the Ghoulies, and there would be others after it.
    The war wasn’t over, and final victory wasn’t yet written for either side, but the cakewalk was over for the Ghoulies. From now on, they were going to pay dearly for anything they took, and more besides.
    “Outstanding work, gentlemen,” Sorilla said, the light of the distant kinetic strikes highlighting her face. “We rode the rock, we found the enemy, and we kicked his ass.”
    “Rock Riders,” they said together. “Hua.”

Chapter One
    USS Cheyenne
    Orbit, Planet S93X5

    Admiral Nadine Brooke surveyed the holo of the planet below, carefully noting the damage done during the kinetic strike even as her eyes looked for further evidence of enemy installations. Thankfully, it looked like they cratered the primary site down to the bedrock, and from experience she knew that secondary sites were unlikely in normally uncontested systems.
    It had taken a ground-based guerrilla campaign to force the enemy to create a secondary site on Hayden’s World, and that was the only world they’d yet found that apparently warranted that sort of