First Casualty Read Online Free Page A

Dry Lightning gone?” Cadow choked on the question.
    Rita glanced at her display. “Everybody's still squawking.”
    “Hesper, can you get me the flag's command net?” Longknife asked softly.
    “Lurk on it regularly, sir.”
    “Please put it on speaker,” the major requested. He never gave an order on Rita's bridge. If he wanted something, he went through her. Rita didn't begrudge him today's directness.
    “Comm,” the admiral shouted from the speaker, “get me through to those tin cans.”
    “No can do, sir, we got a brick wall ahead of us. No comm to or from them.”
    “Sensors, what kind of brick wall?”
    “Damned if I know. Those missiles that missed started exploding and suddenly we got dust and something else all over the place.”
    “Gun squadron, begin acceleration at three gees. Now.” My, but the admiral was sounding a tad hysterical. “Transports.” Ah, the admiral finally remembered them. “Execute ...”
    “What?” Cadow yelped.
    “Signal lost,” Hesper reported.
    “Can we accelerate?” Ray asked.
    “We're in landing mode,” Rita answered. “Even if we go to three gees, we'll float over their base like target balloons.”
    The major pursed his lips. “Set us down at Rosebud One.”
    “Once grounded,” Rita nodded, “we can always launch out into the opposite orbit.”
    Ray considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “Political officer would have my head on a platter.”
    Rita snorted.
    “And these folks have just landed. It must be a mess down there. I've got seven hundred combat veterans. What have they got? A mob that's never had a shot fired at them.”
    “That's what the jollies tell us.” Rita spat the epitaph for political officers.
    “We got to find out sooner or later who's right. If he is, I damn sure want to find out sooner. Land us at Rosebud One.”
    “I've got the conn,” Rita snapped, taking the sticks back from Cadow. “Just once, Ray, I wish you'd let somebody else find out if the buzz-saw is unplugged. Just once.”
    “Where can you set us down?”
    “How close you want to be, grunt?”
    “About thirty klicks from the pass,” Ray ordered. “It'll make for a short approach march. Put the transports safely out of range, and you can keep the rockets warm if we come running back and need a quick ride out of here.”
    “Just make sure you come back.”
    * * * *
    Mary jumped when the infrared signals started screaming again. Six ships, rockets pointed her way, sunk over the horizon. “Landing force arriving,” she announced, ready to get to work. To do, as she had done every day of her working life, the job she was paid for.
    She checked the digger; still not to the escarpment. They had to get a chance to talk to the colonials! But what do you say? They sure as hell hadn't included that in boot camp. She glanced at her board; she was ready to fight. That they'd taught her well. How do you not fight in a war when everybody else is?
    * * * *
    Grandpa always told Ray a soldier expects problems, and problems were staring Ray in the face the second he disembarked. His largest transport, the Loyal, stood at an angle, one landing gear in a crater. The right edge of the roll-off ramp was down the rest hung in space. Engineering platoon was rigging a derrick to offload the artillery the hard way.
    The light assault teams of Companies B and C bounced buggies off their transports and went about preparing for as fast a start as Ray would have done when he commanded a company. Good people.
    “Santiago.” Ray called up his exec. “Use A company for site security and to help the engineers. I'll move out with the vanguard. Get the heavies in D and E company moving as quickly as possible. I'll need artillery as soon as possible.”
    “Right, sir” was all the answer Ray needed.
    Ten minutes later, the light companies were mounted up and impatient to lead the charge. “Santiago, how soon can you give me artillery?”
    “How about two rocket launchers right