Fire from Ashes (Honor & Duty Book 4) Read online

  FIRE FROM ASHES

  HONOR & DUTY BOOK 4

  SAM SCHALL

  CONTENTS

  Fubar

  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

  Contingency Plans

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Battle Stations

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Author’s Note

  Also by the Author

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Amanda S. Green (writing as Sam Schall).

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Hunter’s Moon Press

  Cover art and design by Sarah A. Hoyt

  If you enjoyed this novel, please visit Nocturnal-Lives.com for more titles.

  To those authors who believe in paying it forward and who have been there to help me along the way. You know who you are and you know you have my everlasting gratitude and love.

  Fire burns dishonor.

  Duty avenges betrayal

  FUBAR

  1

  Crocket’s Landing

  Tenasic System

  “INCOMING!”

  Dirt and debris filled the air as another mortar round exploded mere yards from where they huddled behind what might euphemistically be called cover. Lieutenant Colonel Lucinda Ortega ignored the inventive cursing of some of her Marines. Instead, she ordered them to sound off. That blast had been a bit too close for comfort. Not that the others had been much better.

  “Someone get me a location for that mortar!” she ordered as she flipped through her visors various filters, studying the area around them.

  Damn it, this mission had gone to Hell in the proverbial hand basket almost from the moment they landed. At least they’d managed to clear the shuttle before a mortar hit it. Not that it meant much in the grand scheme of things. Her Marines might have made it off but most of their equipment had still been onboard. Worse, they weren’t going to get any support from topside until they managed to take down the controls for the defense platforms. Assuming they managed to find a way through the No Man’s Land they found themselves in.

  “Sorceress, we can’t stay here much longer,” Master Sergeant M. J. Anderson said as she moved to her CO’s side.

  Ortega nodded. “I know, Reaper.” She blew out a breath. “Answer me this. The enemy’s had us pinned down for more than two hours. Why haven’t they moved in?”

  Even as she asked, she knew on possible answer. By holding their troops back, they prevented the Fuerconese Marines from picking them off. This area might be a No Man’s Land for the Marines, but it could quickly become one for the Callusian invaders as well. That might be why their commander continued to rely on his artillery. Still, it didn’t make any sense. By continuing this line of attack, it gave the rest of the Warlords time to get into position to flank them.

  Not that it mattered much if the enemy managed to zero in on them before then. If they did, it would be over for Alpha Company. There wasn’t enough cover to hide behind. All it would take was a few good hits and there would be little for their fellow Warlords to find and return to the home system. Not that she had any intention of allowing that to happen.

  “Wish I knew, Sorceress.” Anderson’s concern, as well as more than a little curiosity, about the enemy’s tactics was clear. “Orders?”

  “Tell the heavies to be ready to move on my signal. If we have a drone left, I want it up. We need eyes on them yesterday.”

  The master sergeant nodded and moved off, crouching low to the ground. As she did, Ortega closed her eyes, thinking hard.

  Damn it!

  Praying she wasn’t about to make a fatal mistake, Ortega carefully shifted positions. She dropped to her belly and inched toward the edge of the barricade. Barricade! What a laugh. For the last ten minutes, she had crouched behind a pile of rubble, part of what had once been a single-story building. As she did, she reached over her shoulder for her sniper rifle. For not the first time, she thanked whoever decided Marine armor should default to black unless its camo capabilities were activated. With the twin suns of the planet below the horizon, that meant the enemy would have to be checking with infrared to be able to see her.

  Unfortunately, that also meant she couldn’t see anything without using her own filters. Even then, her field of vision was limited. Even so, a little was better than nothing.

  For several long moments, she ignored Adamson’s demands that she get back under cover. Instead, she scanned the area. A slight smile touched her lips as she caught sight of an enemy foolish enough to show himself. With a precision that would have impressed her Academy instructors, she carefully squeezed the trigger and watched as he fell to the ground a few seconds later. Then she continued her scan, looking for something, anything that would help them break out of this trap they’d found themselves in.

  “Sorceress, if you don’t get your ass behind cover, I’m going to drag you back,” Adamson growled over a private channel. “We can’t risk you, damn it.”

  Ortega didn’t respond. Adamson was right. The Warlords lost their previous CO in an ambush a few months earlier. Even though Paul Pawlak hadn’t been with them for long, Ortega knew from personal experience that he’d been the kind of CO who quickly earned a division’s loyalty. His death, as well as the deaths of those with him, had rocked the battalion. When she and Adamson arrived to take command, they’d found Marines hurting and in need of a commanding officer who could not only lead them but who could gain their trust and respect. She’d worked hard to be that CO. She’d be damned if she did anything to set them back now.

  Besides, she’d seen what she needed to. Safely back behind her barricade of rubble, she sat up. One part of her brain listened as her company commanders reported in. Some called for medics. Others called for fresh battery packs or ammo. Others reported on enemy troop movement. Not that there was much along that line to report. It seemed each of the companies faced a situation similar to her own.

  And it made no sense.

  Somehow, she had to figure out a way to break her company free and quickly, before it was too late.

  “Wraith, Sorceress,” she commed. “Report.”

  “Sorceress, Wraith. Enemy dug in at two. No change in status.”

  She produced her datapad and pulled up the drop zone map. For several long moments, she studied it. Nothing about the map matched what they’d dropped into except the geography. Troop placements weren’t where they were supposed to be. Defenses the enemy shouldn’t have had time to build were in place. Someone had fucked up and badly. If she lived through this, she’d make it her personal mission to find out who and make them pay. Every Marine she lost, every one of her Marines injured, would be avenged.

  Risking not only her master sergeant’s ire but an enemy projectile, she once again looked around the edge of her cover. Filters flipped from one to another as she scanned the area. Instinct and training. That’s what she had to rely on. Her own and as well as that of the rest of the
battalion. They might not be the Devil Dogs but, by God, they were almost as good. They would not let the enemy win. Not here and not now.

  Ooh-rah!

  “Reaper, I want Tusker and Bird here on the double. Falcon and Eagle are to get ready to soar,” she ordered as she ducked back behind the pile of rubble.

  “Roger that,” the master sergeant replied before relaying her orders. A moment later, Ortega heard the soft beep that signaled Anderson had once again switched to a private channel. “Sorceress, would you mind telling me what you have going on in that warped mind of yours?”

  Despite the seriousness of their situation, Ortega chuckled softly. “I might enlighten you if you get over here ASAP.” She ended the comm and closed her eyes, hoping she wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of her career.

  Less than five minutes later, the heavy weapons specialist and comms specialist she had sent for slid to a halt in front of her. Adamson came next, followed closely by several others. Ortega nodded once, not at all surprised the master sergeant had added Captain Ross Halverson, her exec, or Sergeant Tariq Benton, the next senior non-com in the company. Without speaking, Ortega motioned for them to gather round. As they did, she active her data pad once again. A 3-d map of the area appeared above it. She entered a few corrections and waited as the image adapted to the changes. As it did, she sat back on her heels.

  “We’ll have time later to discuss what went wrong.” She shook her head before any of the others could say anything. “For now, our ships are getting pounded. They don’t have a chance if we can’t get the defense platforms off-line.”

  “You have a plan?” Adamson asked, her tone indicating she knew the answer and also knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  “I do.” She tapped in a command and the map focused in on their position. “The enemy has held here.” She highlighted the area. “For the last half hour. They’re showing no indication of moving. It might be the dark. It might be they are waiting for reinforcements. Whatever it is, we aren’t going to sit here waiting for them to make a move.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Halverson asked.

  She tapped in a command and the map image adjusted to show a wider area. “A fire team is going to move out and take the high ground here.” A red dot indicated the target zone. “That will give Tusker a clear shot at the enemy location. Bird will paint the targets for him. Once the team opens fire, I want the rest of the company pressing forward. We have to break out of this mess now.”

  For a moment, no one said anything. Then Anderson glanced up, her expression hard. “Sorceress, you aren’t planning on taking this little walk with Bird and Tusker, are you?”

  “Can you name a better sniper in the company to go along?”

  She knew the answer and knew Anderson wouldn’t like it. But they had both served under not only Pawlak but Ashlyn Shaw. That taught them a CO did whatever she had to in order to get her people home safely while still fulfilling her mission. Not that it would prevent Anderson from giving her an earful later.

  “Tag and Zen will go as well,” Anderson said, her expression warning Ortega not to object. “Your plan?”

  For the next ten minutes, Ortega laid it out, listening to their comments and amending the plan on the fly. She knew this was their best chance of success. If they failed, she would have no choice but to contact the taskforce commander and tell him to withdraw from the system, stranding the Marines dirtside. That was one call she had no intention of making. This had to work. If it did, not only would they finally be able to move against the groundside controls for the defense platforms, but they could call in air support once the platforms were down.

  “Sorceress, you need to stay here,” Halverson said once she finished the briefing. “I’ll go in your place.”

  For a moment, Ortega said nothing. She saw the worry in the captain’s eyes and understood. He’d been with Pawlak on that last mission. Pawlak had chosen to lead the charge against an enemy encampment, not realizing they had reinforcements hidden nearby. Pawlak and every Marine with him had perished. When she rendezvoused with the taskforce to take command of the battalion, Admiral Wu, Fourth Fleet’s commanding officer, warned that her XO blamed himself for not stopping Pawlak. That guilt shone through once again and she had to put a stop to it.

  “Snapper, I have to go and you know it. I’m sorry, but you’re not a sniper and that’s what we need on the fire team.” She laid her hand on his shoulder, hoping she found the right words to not only reassure him but get through his guilt. If she couldn’t trust him to take command if she fell, she might as well signal their surrender now. “You know our Marines. More importantly, they know you. If something does happen to me, I need you to take command and make sure those platforms come down. But I promise, nothing’s going to happen. That’s why we’re going up high. I want to rain our vengeance down on these bastards. I want to make them pay for Hammer and the others. That means I need you and the rest of the company to give us cover until we’re in position. You can and will do this, Marine.”

  “Ooh-rah, Sorceress.”

  “Ooh-rah, Snapper.” She pounded her fist lightly against his chest and gave a jerk of her head to dismiss him. “Stick close to him, Reaper,” she added over the private channel.

  “I will.” Adamson paused and motioned the others to give them some space. “I swear to God, Luce, if anything happens to you, I’ll kill you. Then I’ll contact Angel, tell her what happened and watch as she figures out a way to resurrect you just so she can then beat you senseless.” Her eyes flashed, and Ortega chuckled softly.

  “You just take care of the company for me, MJ.” She glanced around and then gave her friend’s hand a quick squeeze. “If I don’t make it back, find out what the hell happened. Our intel shouldn’t have been this wrong. It couldn’t have been. Not without someone purposefully feeding us wrong information.”

  Anderson said nothing. Instead, she nodded once. That was enough to let Ortega know the master sergeant agreed with her, at least when it came to the reasons behind their current situation. More than that, she could trust Anderson to do as she asked.

  “Just remember, you have one duty right now, Ma’am. That is to come back to the battalion. It can’t take losing a second CO so soon and I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to tell Angel something happened to you.” With that, Anderson promised to make sure everything would be ready by the time she moved out.

  Alone, Ortega closed her eyes and offered up a quick prayer. She didn’t like her plan any more than Adamson did. But what choice did she have? She had a duty to save as many of her Marines as possible. More importantly, she had a duty to take down the defense platform controls. That would help save the taskforce ships and that, in turn, would help drive the enemy off-planet. Honor and duty demanded she do whatever it took to fulfill her orders and complete her mission.

  She glanced around, watching as her orders were quickly relayed to the rest of the company. Soon those orders would go out over the battlenet to the rest of the division. Hopefully the diversion she and the rest of the fire time caused would be enough to help the others break free as well. There was one thing left for her to do.

  Three minutes later, she ended the recording and input the order to send it should anything happen to her. Before making the drop dirtside, she’d dictated a message for her family. In some ways, this one was more difficult. But she wanted to make sure someone she trusted to look into the breakdown in their intel knew what happened. She had no doubt Ashlyn Shaw would do everything possible to get answers – just as she had almost five years before when Shaw and others had been brought up on charges following a mission that now looked too much like her own current mission.

  “Ready?” she asked the four who would accompany her?

  They now crouched behind a makeshift barricade of rubble, shuttle debris and other things best left unnamed. Each of them carried more weapons than the regs required. She had no doubt they, like her, had added to their usual
loads. Good. They couldn’t risk running out of ammo or losing comms to the rest of the company. Now all they had to worry about was getting to the target safely.

  They nodded.

  “We’ll move out one by one. I know I don’t have to say it but make yourselves small, stick to the shadows and use what cover you can.”

  “Tag, you have lead,” Adamson said from where she knelt next to Ortega. “Zen, you are on Sorceress. Stick to her and make sure she makes it to the target. Tusker, you bring up the rear.”

  “Roger that, Reaper,” the heavy weapons specialist replied.

  “Then let’s do this.” Ortega reached over her left shoulder and pulled her battle rifle. She checked its load and watched as the others followed suit. Then she turned her attention back to Adamson. “If there is any change in the enemy’s status, comm me. Otherwise, you have my orders.”

  “Understood, Sorceress.” Adamson nodded to each member of the fire team. “First round once we’ve got liberty is on me. Good hunting.”

  Slowly, carefully, they moved out. Keeping low, Ortega waited until Tag signaled the all clear. The moment he did, she raced across a clearing that suddenly seemed much larger than it had moments before. As she did, she swept the area, her rifle at the ready. Then she slid to a stop in the shadows of the narrow alley running between two of the very few buildings still standing. She gave a quick nod to Zen as the private slid to a halt at her side.

  A tap on her shoulder came at the same time Tag’s voice over the fireteam’s ‘net. “Movement,” he said softly before reading off the coordinates.

  Ortega switched her battle rifle for her sniper rifle. As she did, she dropped to one knee. With Zen at her shoulder, she focused on the coordinates Tag called out. Her implants kicked in, slowing her pulse and breathing. Eye sight sharpened, and the sights of the rifle synced with her ocular implant.

  There!