The Last Day of the War - Part 3

The Last Day of the War

Part 3

At sunset the Sergeant Major led the team - two teams really, one for infiltration of the enemy base and one for fire support - away from our base and into the rugged foothills to the east. In ancient times a series of tunnels had been blasted through the mountains to the eastern coast of the continent to the narrow road that led south to the continent of Lorrimer. The road was pock-marked with the craters of the ancient wars and the tunnels leading to them had been abandoned for centuries. The General, apparently planning for the day when air travel became nonexistent due to lack of resources, had ordered the tunnels to be repaired in secret. The road he planned to repair only when it became obvious he needed it, but the tunnels were clear all the way to the coast. As fortune would have it, one of the gaps between the tunnels occurred only thirty miles to the east of the enemy camp where the remains of an immense bridge had once crossed a steep sided valley.

With a few minor adjustments to their antigravity suspensors our ground speeders had little trouble navigating down the side of the narrow valley. The valley twisted its way through the rugged foothills until they gave way to the narrow plain that separated them from the sea. At the mouth of the valley we encountered a small detachment of Kaarl’s troops. The arrogant, vile dog who served as Kaarl’s general was not so much a fool that he left the valley unguarded.

His plans, however, had not included an angry young woman from Galine.

My energy rifle had been recalibrated so it fired a beam of energy that was invisible to the unaided eyes of the enemy soldiers. I worked my way through their ranks so quickly most of them were unaware their camp was under attack. The officers I left for last. They died fully aware the Angel of Death was hunting them. The officers Kaarl employed on this front were all mercenaries. Who better than a Galine mercenary to whip a pack of barbarians into battle? I only wished I could make their deaths more lingering, but I had a more important target.

The bulk of the team remained at the mouth of the valley while the infiltration team, composed of myself, the Sergeant Major, and the twins, continued on to the enemy base. We stopped several miles from base and hid our speeder in a small copse of trees. Before we continued on foot the Sergeant Major inspected each of our assault rifles to ensure their safeties were set. He was surprised at first when he saw I was carrying an assault rifle instead of my normal weapon, but nodded his agreement when I pointed out the slimmer weapon would be more useful in the close quarters work we had ahead of us.

While Kaarl’s industrial capabilities had been severely crippled, he occupied the most densely populated portions of the planet. His general lacked the more advanced security sensors that would have instantly detected our presence, in fact the only security sensors he had available were only capable of detecting burst of energy from our weapons. He attempted to fill the gaps left by an absence of technology with his vast pool of human resources. Small groups made frequent patrols in the area we needed to cross to get to the base, but the main road had only a single patrol on it. Kaarl’s pet general had apparently decided only fools would use the main road to infiltrate his base, or perhaps he relied on his patrols to watch the road as well as the rugged terrain through which they walked. Mainly, I think, he relied on his limited sensor net to detect enemy weapons fire.