A House Divided Read online

  A House Divided

  Terran Armor Corps Book 4

  by

  Richard Fox

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  Read THE EMBER WAR for Free

  Read ALBION LOST, another Richard Fox universe!

  Chapter 1

  Corporal Jerry Marris struggled down a sand dune, one hand gripping his gauss rifle, the other gripping PFC Valencia by the carry handle across the back of her shoulders. He dragged his squad mate down the slope, his eyes locked over his shoulder as he struggled to keep her from sliding away, a difficult task even in Ranger power armor and the too-high gravity of Thesius II. Valencia left a trail of congealing blood in the sand.

  Distant explosions sounded after them and gauss bullets and laser bolts snapped over sand dunes around them. Jerry checked the compass heading on the inside of his skull-shaped visor. He had a good idea which direction would get him back to Terran lines, and which way led to the Kesaht, but the mounds of sand around them had a bad habit of disorienting him.

  “Talk to me, Val,” Jerry said.

  “I’m cold,” she said, pain lacing her words.

  “Rook rook!” echoed over the battlefield. Jerry looked to the top of the surrounding dunes but didn’t see any of the alien Rakka.

  “Your armor’s not functioning right.” Jerry hauled her up a dune slope, positioning her so her head was angled higher than her heart. Her left foot was a mangle of broken armor and bloody flesh. A bullet strike to her sternum had cracked the armor plate but hadn’t penetrated.

  “Get this off…need to breathe.” Valencia pawed at her skull visor, but Jerry pushed her hands away and took a spool off her belt.

  “Air’s bad,” Jerry said. “Just hold tight while I get a tourniquet on you.”

  “You said my leg was fine.” She struggled to sit up, but her elbows sank in the sand.

  “It will be.” He drew a length of wire from the spool and fed it into an eyehole just below her left knee. As blood oozed from the chewed-up remnants of her foot, Jerry ignored the white bone fragments mingled with the beige armor. Pulling the tip of the wire through the exit hole below her knee, he wrapped the wire over itself, then put his thumb against a button on the spool.

  “Ready in three…” He pressed the button and the wire tightened against itself, the auto-tourniquet squeezing against her leg and strangling her femoral artery.

  Valencia gasped in pain and her left leg reared up. Jerry caught her just below the knee and stopped her from bashing the abused limb into the ground.

  “Son of a bitch!” she cried.

  “Hurts me too,” Jerry said.

  “Rakka.” Valencia slapped a palm against the sand.

  “Gonna get you out of here,” Jerry said.

  “Rook rook!” sounded again and ice ran down Jerry’s spine. He turned around and found the enemy charging over dunes and right for them, their red eyes bright with murder, their hodgepodge armor rattling against their bodies as sunlight glinted off their crude blades and serrated bayonets at the ends of their laser rifles. He snapped up his weapon and opened fire.

  Gauss bullets snapped out and smashed into the Rakka, the rounds hitting with enough force to punch through a Rakka and kill the alien behind it. But the bloodshed only seemed to make them charge faster.

  Jerry put himself between Valencia and the enemy.

  “Saint Kallen,” he prayed as he dropped an empty magazine and slapped in a fresh one, “witness this.” He shot a Rakka with a severed human hand still in Ranger armor dangling from a necklace. The screaming aliens closed in as he unloaded another magazine.

  As Jerry swung his rifle butt into a Rakka’s hairy face, crushing it with the blow, an axe chopped into his shoulder. Although it deflected off his pauldron, the blow still stung and he lost his grip on his rifle.

  A Rakka stabbed a bayonet at Valencia, but Jerry flung himself toward her and grabbed the blade. As he held it firm, the edge cutting into the thin padding over his palms, he locked eyes with the Rakka and saw his skull-shaped visor reflected in the alien’s eyes.

  The Rakka grunted at him like an angry ape, then backed off, leaving the weapon in Jerry’s grasp. The rest of the mob pulled away from the two Rangers.

  “The Saint heard you,” Valencia slurred.

  A shadow passed over Jerry and the whirl of a rotary cannon rose in the air.

  A black suit of armor towered over Jerry, a Templar cross emblazoned over the chest and shoulder. The armor held a Mauser rifle in both hands, the wide-bore weapon almost as large as Jerry. The rotary cannon, spinning so fast the barrels were a blur, spat fire and tore through the Rakka.

  The aliens broke and fled, some managing to scramble over the dunes before the rotary cannon swept through their ranks, killing dozens within seconds.

  As the armor stepped off the dune, its massive foot crushing a dead alien, the rotary cannon snapped back, and an empty ammo can spat off its back and fell smoking into the sand next to Valencia.

  The armor’s helm turned to the Rangers.

  “Get her out of here,” Roland said, his voice booming through speakers.

  “I will never leave a Ranger…” Jerry said, shaking blood from his hand and grabbing Valencia by the carry handle with the other, “to fall into—”

  “I know your creed,” Roland said. “Head east.”

  The breech on his Mauser snapped open and Roland loaded a magazine the size of Jerry’s helmet. He strode west, crushing dead aliens with each step.

  “No!” Jerry yelled, reaching for the armor. “There’s too many! A full-scale counterattack. They tore up our platoon. Sanheel and—”

  “I am armor.” Roland beat a fist against his chest and bounded over a dune in two steps.

  “I lost too much blood,” Valencia said. “Swear that was the Black Knight.”

  “You ain’t dreaming.” Jerry hauled Valencia around the slope.

  ****

  Roland charged up a three-story-tall dune where bodies of Rangers and Rakka lay partially buried in the slope. The noise of his feet slamming into the sand caught the attention of a Rakka on the other side and the alien stuck its head over the slope just as Roland’s helm crested. The armor swatted the foot soldier, launching it into the air, an arc of blood trailing it.

  Beyond the dune was a wide bowl in the desert, inside which Rakka milled around their Sanheel officers. The tall centaur-like leaders of the Kesaht assault clustered around a field captain with wide silver thread woven through his hair to mark his rank.

  Roland kicked through the top of the dune and opened fire with his Mauser. The massive rifle boomed and kicked back with recoil strong enough to kill an unarmored soldier if they’d been foolish—or strong—enough to wield it. The fist-
sized shell bounced off the energy shield protecting a Sanheel lieutenant and tore through a pair of Rakka nearby.

  The Sanheel captain pointed at Roland, roared a challenge, and jabbed the butt end of a haft against the ground. A wide spear tip snapped out of the haft and the captain charged toward Roland, the weapon aimed at the armor soldier and glinting in the sunlight.

  The rest of the centaurs brandished their own spears and galloped after the captain, forming a wedge of alien bulk. Rakka scrambled to get out of the way, but a few were too slow and were trampled into paste.

  Roland came down the slope, still firing his Mauser, but each shot was just as ineffective as the first. The Sanheel captain charged faster, spittle flying off its tusks.

  Roland flung the rifle behind him, embedding the barrel in the sand. He pulled a sword hilt off the side of his leg and flicked a button on the Templar cross worked into the hand guard. A seven-foot blade snapped out in segments, and an omnium lattice spread within the weapon, locking it rigid.

  The armor took up a fighting stance and held the sword level with his helm, resting it on his left arm, the tip pointed at the oncoming Sanheel. The double-barrel gauss cannons on his right forearm powered up.

  “Come on.” Roland twisted his front foot in the sand and felt the vibration of the charging Sanheel through his womb.

  An energy field formed around the captain’s spear tip and the alien pulled his elbow up to deliver a strike aimed right for Roland’s chest.

  Roland fired a single round from his forearm cannon and struck the Sanheel’s spear on the haft. The bullet slapped the weapon to one side and left the captain’s guard wide open. Roland lunged forward like a fencer and stabbed his sword through the captain’s shield and into his sternum. Momentum carried the alien forward, impaling it up to the hilt and stopping like it hit a brick wall.

  Roland’s optics locked with the stunned captain’s face, then he wrenched the blade to one side and dragged the dying Sanheel into the way of a lieutenant’s spear thrust. The spear pierced the captain’s back and the lieutenant’s jaw went slack in shock. Roland ripped his blade free in a geyser of blood and spun it over his head, striking through the lieutenant’s neck and sending the head flying.

  A Sanheel charged past Roland and managed a glancing blow against Roland’s side. Sparks flew from the impact and left a silver gash across the matte-black paint of his suit. The rest of the aliens overshot Roland and wheeled around, leaving their backs to the dunes from where Roland had emerged.

  The alien that managed a hit grabbed his spear at the end and swung the tip in a wide arc aimed at Roland’s neck servos. Roland blocked the strike with the flat of his blade and hooked the spear head with his edge. He yanked back, pulling the Sanheel forward. Roland lowered his shoulder and lunged forward, catching the alien in the chest, crushing its ribcage and snapping the bones.

  Another Sanheel stabbed at Roland’s arm and got the spear wedged in his elbow servos. Roland kicked the attacker’s foreleg and shattered it at the knee. The Sanheel pitched forward, crying out in pain. Roland kicked it in the flank just as it hit the ground and sent it barreling into two more Sanheel, knocking them all down in a tangle of limbs and spears.

  A Mauser boomed and a Sanheel’s shield flared just as its head exploded. Two more Mausers opened fire, felling the alien officers with each shot. Roland slashed across an alien’s chest, leaving a deep gash that severed a rank sash and sent a gout of blood down the alien’s front.

  The Sanheel whirled around, confused by Roland’s continued assault and being fired upon by weapons that defeated their shields.

  As an alien reared up and beat at Roland’s shoulders with its front hooves, Roland ducked to one knee and cut across the Sanheel’s underbelly. Its legs gave out and Roland stomped a boot against its skull, splattering its head across the bare, rocky ground. Mausers fired another volley and he spun around. All the Sanheel lay dead and dying.

  Three suits of armor stood atop a dune, smoke rising from the red-hot barrels of their rifles.

  Roland turned to face the thousands of Rakka that had just witnessed the fight and raised his bloody sword overhead.

  “I’ll have you next!” Roland pointed the sword at a wide-eyed foot soldier and Sanheel blood snapped across the plain.

  The Rakka hooted in fear, turned, and ran.

  Roland charged forward, bellowing a war cry at the highest volume his speakers could manage. He slowed as the Rakka kept running, frantically climbing the dunes at the far end of the basin and vanishing into the deep desert.

  He slowed to a stop and slapped the flat of his blade against his leg, knocking blood free.

  “Your plan was stupid,” Cha’ril said from behind him.

  “If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid.” He turned around and Aignar tossed the Mauser from the sand dune to him. Roland caught it by the grip and reset the power output on the rifle to HIGH.

  “How did you know they’d charge instead of shooting you?” Aignar asked.

  Roland touched the Templar cross on his chest and slapped a hand against his black armor.

  “They know me,” Roland said. “Sanheel are ambitious, prideful. If I plug them a few times with my underpowered rifle, it looks like I’m helpless. If they kill the Black Knight in hand-to-hand combat, they’re sure to be promoted. Once they were committed to a close-in fight, it was like shooting fish in a barrel for you three, right?”

  “Target acquisition was simplified, yes,” said Cha’ril, the lance’s Dotari member.

  “We should finish them.” Aignar gestured toward the last of the Rakka as they disappeared over the dunes. The basin was littered with Kesaht vehicles and supplies.

  “No need,” Lieutenant Gideon said. “Flyboys finally decided to send close air support to this sector now that the enemy’s broken contact. Kesaht know we won’t bomb them when they’re right on top of us.”

  “A little space is all we needed.” Roland looked up as a flight of six Condor bombers streaked overhead. Canisters loosed from the bombers and came apart over the retreating Kesaht. Hundreds of submunitions rained down on the aliens, exploding into metal flechettes with a ripple of pops.

  “Not bad, Roland,” Aignar said. “Right, sir?” he asked Gideon.

  Gideon didn’t even look at Roland as he watched another flight of bombers cross over the first attack run.

  “Prep for transport,” Gideon said. “We’re needed in another sector.” He locked his Mauser over his back, across the spine from his rail cannon vanes, and pointed to the west where a Dragonfly aircraft flew over the dune wall. The ship was little more than a cockpit attached to massive engines at the fore of the craft and a long keel ending in an aft made up of another engine.

  The Dragonfly hovered over the four armor and robotic arms came out of the centerline and gripped each soldier just under the shoulders. The transport hefted them into the air and flew off, engines straining.

  Servo arms in the Dragonfly went to work as they cut over the desert. Roland’s ammo was reloaded, batteries swapped, and the gash on his side repaired. The amniosis inside his womb flushed cool as the oxygen-rich fluid was recycled.

  “He’s still mad at you,” Aignar said on a channel open to him, Roland, and Cha’ril.

  Roland checked the data fed into his vision cortex by the plugs in the base of his skull connecting him to his armor. Gideon was in a private channel with a higher command element, one that didn’t show on Gideon’s status.

  “I can’t imagine why,” Roland said.

  “I’m sure it has something to do with you fighting alongside the Ibarras on Balmaseda,” Cha’ril said. “You were with Gideon’s old lance mates, the ones that defected to the Ibarras and left him behind.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s it,” Roland dead panned.

  “Then why did you—”

  “Irony, Cha’ril. Is there a Dotari word for facetious?” Roland asked.

  “Checking,” she said. “No. We would
never joke about something like this.”

  “What’s a little light treason between friends?” Aignar asked.

  “I fought on Balmaseda against the Kesaht,” Roland said. “It wasn’t against Earth and I did it to save lives.”

  “We get that,” Aignar said. “Don’t we, Cha’ril?”

  “The reasoning is sound,” she said. “Though I think Lieutenant Gideon will never see it that way. Humans can be irrational.”

  “Well, it’s not like Roland was slaved to pheromones and beating people nearly to death with sticks,” Aignar said. “Or spitting phlegm all over people. Did I tell you about that, Roland?”

  “You have shared that story eight times,” Cha’ril said.

  “I leave you two alone for a few weeks while I’m in an Ibarran prison cell and look at all the trouble you get into,” Roland said.

  The Dragonfly passed over Terran lines. Rangers in the desert below raised their rifles and cheered as the armor flew overhead.

  “We’re coming up on the ship,” Aignar said.

  “Patch me your video,” Roland said. “I’m facing the wrong way.”

  When the screen came up on Roland’s vision, he saw a gash of blackened sand and rock stretched across the desert, ending where a strike carrier lay cradled by dunes. The ship’s forward hangars were angled to the sky, the bridge and dorsal rail cannon batteries battered but largely intact. The upper hull was white with wide green stripes—not Terran Union Navy colors, but those of the Ibarra Nation.

  “Amazing that the Narvik survived the crash somewhat intact,” Cha’ril said. “Even more impressive that some of the Ibarran crew survived.”

  “You’d think they’d be a bit happier to see us and the Rangers,” Aignar said. “The Kesaht would have killed them all had we not arrived in system with the Argonne.”

  “Being taken prisoner is rarely a plus,” Roland said. “Don’t think it matters by who or why.”

  “Man’fred Vo told me there are prisons being built on Mars,” Cha’ril said. “Near the Ulysses Tholis, not far from Olympus.”

  “How does your almost-husband know about that?” Aignar asked.