The Beast of Eridu

  The Beast of Eridu

  Terran Strike Marines Book 4

  by

  Richard Fox

  and

  Scott Moon

  Copyright © by Richard Fox

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  ASIN:

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  FROM THE AUTHORS

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  EMBER WAR UNIVERSE SUGGESTED READING ORDER

  Chapter 1

  One hand gripping a metal loop over his head, the other holding his gauss rifle, Hoffman braced himself as turbulence rattled the dropship. He looked down at the trap door beneath his feet and a gallows feeling came over him as the Mule roiled and the Strike Marine behind him bumped against his armor. The loop in his gloved hand might as well have been a noose—the promise of death waited as soon as the door swung open. The sound of his breathing filled his enclosed helmet as adrenaline coursed through his veins and triggered a slight palsy in his hands.

  “Landing zone’s hot,” the pilot said through Hoffman’s earbud. “Your call.”

  With a flick of his eyes, Hoffman opened a tactical overlay on the inside of his helmet’s visor and brought up icons of other Strike Marine units making their assault across a long front.

  “Hot all over. Take us in,” Hoffman said.

  “Another one of those drops,” said Max, the team’s communication specialist, from behind Hoffman.

  “You know the mission,” Gunney King said from the other end of the Strike Marine team. “Hit the bunkers. Clear the air for follow-on drops.”

  “Bunkers full of pissed-off Kesaht,” Garrison said. “This is going to be Iwo Jima all over again. Semper Fi, right?”

  “You said it was Tarawa yesterday,” said Booker, the medic, as she jabbed an elbow into Garrison’s back. “You got better or worse at Strike Marine history?”

  “Focus, yeah?” Duke shrugged a shoulder with a heavy strap over it. “You think bitching at the ghost of Chesty Puller is going to make this drop go any easier? Don’t hear Opal complaining. Right, Opie?”

  “Kill Kesaht.” The doughboy’s grip on the metal ring tightened, bending it ever so slightly.

  “Someone gets it,” Duke said, touching the stock of his sniper rifle jutting over his shoulder.

  Through the small windows in the side of the dropship, light diffused through nighttime clouds as fires raged below and explosions flashed up and against the cloud cover.

  “Bombardment looks light,” Hoffman said as he swiped through data feeds. “And we’re losing telemetry from the rest of the assault force. As expected.”

  “We figure out how the Kesaht keep scrambling comms, I’ll feel a lot more useful,” Max said. “I signed up to be more than a bullet tosser and a bullet catcher.”

  “Yeah, if you could avoid the latter, I’d appreciate it,” Booker said. “Though I wonder if you got shot on Koensuu just to miss out on all the cold.”

  “I’m still shivering from that ice ball,” Garrison said.

  Hoffman looked over one shoulder, down his line of Strike Marines. One, the shortest, hadn’t spoken. The Dotari was normally close-lipped—or close-beaked in the alien’s case—before an operation. Dotari military culture believed that pre-deployment discussion meant the plan was flawed.

  Red warning lights flashed through the dropship.

  “Two minutes.” King flicked a switch on his gauss rifle and the weapon’s magnetic fields powered on. “Lock and load. Remember your sectors when we drop. Violence of action. Check your buddy.”

  Hoffman tugged on his handle then touched the gauss magazines and grenades mag-locked to his power armor. He turned to Max and checked a small screen incorporated into the man’s shoulder pauldron. Max’s power levels and suit integrity read green. He gave the commo Marine a slap on his shoulder.

  “You’re ready to rock and roll,” the lieutenant said.

  “You’re good, sir,” Max replied and bumped a fist against Hoffman’s arm.

  “Hey! Watch it, buddy,” Duke said, slapping away Gor’al’s hand.

  “It is unsecured!” The Dotari Marine reached for a pouch on the sniper’s hip.

  “The hell it is!” Duke slapped away Gor’al’s hand. “You want to keep those fingers? Keep your mitts off my chewing tobacco.”

  “But if you’re a casualty, then—”

  “You still can’t have my dip!”

  “Look alive! Release in five!” the pilot shouted through the ship’s intercom.

  The Mule dipped down and accelerated, then nosed up. The maneuver dragged on Hoffman’s stomach and he had to pull against the handle and push up from the trap door to keep his balance.

  The door snapped open and Hoffman fell into hell. Lines of fire burned across a steppe, barren but for grass and the crisscross snap of gauss tracers and energy blasts. The line of spun titanium connecting the handle to the Mule caught and lowered him toward the ground.

  A bolt of blue fire streaked past him and impacted the bottom of the Mule. He felt the ship wobble through the line.

  “Release! Release!” Hoffman let go and fell, accelerating toward a small fire. In his armor, he weighed close to three hundred pounds and was not about to land gently. He put his feet and knees together just before he hit, rolling with his momentum through flames.

  Ignoring the heat building through his boots, he quickly orientated himself to the battlefield. The Mule shot away, blowing dust and embers across his visor.

  “Team, sound off!” Hoffman went prone in a patch of dirt that wasn’t on fire and tried to contact headquarters as gunfire thundered around him.

  “We’re good to go.” King shot a thumbs-up to Hoffman.

  “Team, move to waypoint Alpha One,” Hoffman said, rising to a low crouch and rushing toward a marker on his HUD. He scanned the tundra through the synergistic optics of his helmet and gauss rifle as feeds from Duke and Max illuminated a corner of his heads-up display.

  He relaxed. He was made for this. There wasn’t time to worry about politics or personalities. This was go time. Commanding Marines in the middle of chaos was what he was trained for and what his team needed from him right now.

  “I would not steal from you if you were not a stingy human,” Gor’al moaned as he covered Duke’s flank.

  “Stow that noise,” King ordered.

  “Phase two,” Hoffman said, “find the bunkers!”

  Eagle air-support fighters ripped over the battlefield, engines distorting sound for miles in every direction. Missiles jumped from their short wings and streaked over a low ridge in the distance.

  “Those were maverick missiles,” Garrison said. “That means Kesaht tanks are coming.”

  “Maybe the missiles blew up all the tanks,” Booker said.

  “You want to be out here in the open flapping when a tank comes over that ridge?” Garrison’s head whipped from side to side, taking in the open terrain. “Bad place to be!”

  Energy bolts blasted out the ground at the base of the ridge and the team dove to the ground.

  “Found the bunker!” Max
shouted.

  “Not a lot of cover around here,” Duke complained as he flopped down on the highest elevation in the area—an anemic escarpment about six feet high—and pulled his sniper kit forward. Gor’al went prone beside him, aiming his weapon at the bunkers that looked a lot closer and more dangerous with crew-served weapons pointing out of the slots.

  At another point on their firing line, Booker handed Garrison grenades for the launcher slung under the barrel of his gauss rifle.

  “Frag out,” Garrison said, firing once, twice, and a third time as Booker struggled to keep up. Explosions blasted against the bunker but failed to enter the small firing ports.

  “Move position,” Hoffman directed via the infrared lasers connecting their helmets.

  “Moving,” Garrison said.

  “Covering,” Max answered.

  Duke and Gor’al followed a similar routine. “Two bunkers sighted and marked. Moving to the next redoubt.”

  Kesaht gunners sprayed tracer rounds into the night, where they skipped across the frozen steppes.

  Hoffman watched his team from behind Opal while the doughboy placed careful shots in another window slot of the bunker.

  “Command to Hammer Six, have you neutralized your targets?” The landing commander’s voice rang in Hoffman’s ears, nearly crystal clear.

  “Waiting on a response,” Hoffman answered. “Duke, hold overwatch. Don’t lose your assistant this time.”

  “I never lost him.”

  “I was on a side mission,” Gor’al said.

  “Not the time right now. Get to work,” Hoffman said. He checked his people and moved, steering Opal by the back of his armor. The doughboy formed a moving body bunker that was reassuring.

  “We’re set,” Gor’al said. “I am thinking my partner will share a dip since I carried so much of his gear.”

  “Clear the air, Gor’al,” Duke said. “Ice Claw for Hammer Six, the horses are on the move.”

  The thrill of fear raced up Hoffman’s spine. “Understood. Max, get me Command.”

  Sanheel shock troops, centaur-like aliens that stood nearly eight feet tall, charged over the ridgeline, galloping far faster than a human could ever run.

  “Go for Command,” Max said an instant later.

  The ground rumbled as dirt and ice exploded into the morning dawn behind the charge.

  “Hammer Six to Command, we’ve got a pony counterattack.” Hoffman cut the transmission without waiting for a confirmation. The boss could wait while he dealt with a deadly threat. “Let’s hit ‘em, Hammers!”

  “Kill enemy!” Opal roared, shifting his fire to the charging Sanheel.

  “These bunkers are still making noise!” Garrison shouted.

  “Then shut them up!” Hoffman yelled.

  “Sir need to move!” Opal yelled, dragging Hoffman to a better position.

  Garrison fired the last of his grenades and switched straight to full auto with his gauss rifle. “Get some!”

  Hoffman let the violation pass. He felt his own adrenaline surge as he marched his rounds into the charging enemy. One of the officers outpaced the others, so Hoffman cut his legs from under him and watched several tons of Sanheel plow into the ground.

  His Strike Marines opened up with their gauss rifles, sending up a wall of magnetically driven bolts that smashed into the charging foe. Hoffman felt the still ground, at odds with the sight of the thundering hooves, and braced his rifle against his shoulder as he emptied another magazine.

  He swiveled toward another target just as a message flashed across his HUD.

  SIMULATION TERMINATED

  The Sanheel vanished and fire from the bunkers cut off. To the team’s left and right, the snap of gauss rifles carried over the battlefield.

  “What the actual hell?” Duke sat up on his knees.

  Opal beat a meaty fist against his heavy gauss cannon, the barrel glowing hot. "Opal break again!"

  "No! No! No!" Garrison shouted. "I was just starting to enjoy this. Opal, what’d you do?"

  "It's not him, Garrison. Simulation’s over. Recover," King said.

  Hoffman slapped a new magazine into his rifle but got an error message on his HUD. His weapon had been disabled and wouldn’t cycle a bullet into the chamber.

  “Gor’al, did you make another safety violation?” Max asked.

  “You mean did you remember not to maneuver in front of my line of fire while I was providing overwatch?” The snap of the Dotari’s beak cut through the air.

  New orders popped up on Hoffman’s visor. His lip twitched as he scanned over the text.

  “Stop grumbling and bring it in,” Hoffman said. “There's a Mule coming to pick us up. Gunney, see the team’s weapons readied safe for transport."

  “That was a textbook-perfect landing and deployment,” Max said. “How many times are we going to do this?”

  “Until we can’t get it wrong,” King said.

  Max shook his head, fatigue evident on his face.

  It took Hoffman a second to understand what Max was complaining about. "Sim didn’t get cancelled for the way we did the drop."

  Max touched a panel on his gauntlet screen and an antenna extended up from the radio pack on his back.

  “We’re cut off from all the comm networks,” Max said. “Sir?”

  “I don’t know anything more than we need to get on the bird that’s coming for us.” Hoffman’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly.

  “Your instructions mention the three-day pass we’re supposed to get after this training evolution, sir?” Max stretched out the last word, blatantly fishing for more information.

  “They did not,” Hoffman said as he watched a Mule crest over the horizon. His team spread out into a circle, weapons oriented out, as they waited for pickup.

  “You wanted guaranteed time off, you should’ve joined the Sky Watch,” King said. “Strike Marines are mission first…people always.”

  “Recruiter lied to me.” Max shook his head.

  “Hey, me too.” Garrison pushed his visor up and took a bite of beef jerky. “Said Strike Marines did orbital landings all the time. Never had to walk anywhere.”

  “Mine said I’d be up to my neck in ladies.” Duke tucked a pinch of chewing tobacco into his lip then slapped away Gor’al’s hand. “He wasn’t wrong.”

  “They just want the singles you tuck into their G-strings,” Garrison said.

  “That don’t make him wrong. Just makes me broke.” Duke spat into the dirt.

  The Mule swooped low, landing fast without evasive combat maneuvers. As every member of the team hustled toward the open ramp, a crewman directed them to a bench.

  Garrison clamped one hand on Max’s shoulder as the two sat down. “We can't keep doing this over just for you. If you don't start showing improvement, we’ll need to draw a replacement from the Dotari Marines."

  Gor’al nodded excitedly. "That is an outstanding idea! I have many friends who are Dotari!”

  “I didn't see that coming,” Booker said, removing her helmet and reaching back to adjust her tight bun of hair.

  Hoffman climbed into the Mule and stowed his gear along the wall, the promised three-day pass on his mind. His Hammers had been training hard for weeks against Kesaht targets, prepping for an operation that they still didn’t have the details for. The next big push against the Kesaht was being planned far above his pay grade, but he had sources. As much as good training was the best form of welfare for his Marines, they still needed to blow off steam from time to time.

  Hoffman strapped into the bench as the Mule angled up and accelerated. He felt the rumble through the deck plates and checked the angle of ascent through the window. They were burning for orbit.

  Gunney King sat next to him. "Anything?"

  "No, just get on the Mule." Hoffman touched his gauntlet screen then tapped King’s, transferring the order to the senior NCO.

  “I got a bad feeling about this,” King said. “Getting yanked out of the middle of a trai
ning exercise like that? Bet the brass had kittens over that move.”

  “And our comms are off-line…could be good news,” Hoffman said.

  “You think they’re sending us after the Breitenfeld?” King asked. The Ibarra Nation had captured the ship and her entire crew, including the war hero Admiral Valdar, during the battle over Syracuse. Hoffman and his team had been walking through the planet’s deserts, trying to get back to the fight, when they learned what happened to their ship.

  In the weeks that followed, there had been no trace of the Breitenfeld or the critical Keystone jump-gate technology she’d carried. Hoffman and his team were reassigned to the Second Assault Corps and thrown into the line for training.

  “We’ve been jerked around too much lately,” Hoffman said, looking over his team. They were all exhausted. “No need to get hopes up just yet.”

  “Damn Ibarrans,” King said. “Terran Union’s been fighting losing battles against the Kesaht in a dozen systems. They pop up to gank the Breit from us then vanish. You’d think they’d want to fight the Kesaht too.”

  “Least we’re not fighting the Ibarra Nation and the Kesaht,” Hoffman said. “Yet.”

  “Yet,” King said. “I don’t care how many Ibarrans are in our way. We’re getting the Breitenfeld back.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears,” Hoffman said.