Free Tombstone by Jay Allan Page B

them coming, at least six of them heading toward my
spot.  The whole thing happened in slow motion.  I took one last shot through
the crack on the rock, hitting one of the attackers in the leg.  At least four
or five projectiles hit the leg, tearing it off completely.  He dropped hard to
the ground and writhed for a couple seconds before Tombstone finished the job.
    I paused an instant watching him fall, and then I realized
with a start that there were no more targets…I had waited too long.  Something
took over, instincts, maybe or, more likely training.  I rolled over on my
back, whipping my rifle around, and I blasted at full auto, taking out two more
as they climbed over the rocks.
    The next two seconds lasted a lifetime.  I’d emptied my
clip, and I could hear the autoloader moving a new one into position.  The
entire process had always seemed nearly instantaneous to me, but now it felt as
though it was taking forever.  I looked up, and I could see the enemy troops
coming over, and one of them was turning to me.  I could hear each heartbeat
pounding in my head as I brought my mag-rifle up to target him.  He was doing
the same, but his was loaded and mine was empty.  I’d have a new clip in place
in less than a second, but in that instant I knew it was going to be too late. 
I stared up into the barrel of his gun, and I knew I was dead.
    And then I wasn’t.  Just before he fired, his body lurched
backwards, his arm flying upward, spraying the air with fire.  The top half of
his body twisted to the right, the bottom to the left.  He wasn’t cut in half,
not quite, but he fell in a gruesome heap, half a meter from where I was
laying.  Standing there, silhouetted against the reddish light, was the
lieutenant, his arm raised, bloodied blade extended.  He sliced its edge, a
single molecule thick, into my would-be killer’s side, driven with all the
enhanced power his suit’s servo-mechanicals could deliver.
    I was laying there in shock, thinking I should thank the
lieutenant when his voice boomed into my headset.  “Get the hell up, Jax!”  His
voice was still calm, but even his even tone was affected by the stress of
battle.  “This isn’t time for a nap.”
    He jogged past me without another word, leveling his
mag-rifle and shooting down half a dozen Janissaries who were coming over the
rock wall and taking aim at the auto-cannon.  Glenn was firing that alone,
targeting the second wave of enemy troops still emerging from the smoke and
advancing on our position.  Langon was down.  I didn’t know then, but he taken
a hit early.  His suit’s auto-repair managed to close the breach, saving his
life for all of ten minutes.  He took a second hit, this time in the neck, and
he fell to the ground, dead.
    I climbed up to my feet, watching the lieutenant for a
second.  I glanced over the rock wall – there were no troops approaching my
position, so I spun to the left.  All along the line there were Janissaries
pouring up and over the broken ridge.  It was a confused melee, with point
blank fire and blade fights.  The Caliphate troops had their own version of the
molecular blade, and it was longer and more effective than ours.  They trained
with it more than we did too, and they thought they could beat us in a hand to
hand fight.  But our close range fire drill was very effective, and not many of
them got close enough to one of our troops to force a knife fight.
    The snipers played a key role too, picking off enemy
officers and non-coms, targeting them even when they stood centimeters away
from our own troops.  Our sniper tactics and training were light-years ahead of
theirs, and it showed.  This range was child’s play to the sharpshooters, and
they scored hit after hit.  The company’s three snipers went a long way toward
helping us cope with the enemy numbers. 
    Still, we were gradually being pushed back from the
ridgeline.  The enemy’s third wave came pouring over the rocks, and