Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) by Doug Dandridge Read Free Book Online Page B

been a combat situation, they would have let any enemy for tens of
kilometers know they were coming.
    Ten kilometers
further was the river, three hundred meters across, deep and swift. 
Cornelius could have flown over it, but decided this obstacle called for
something different.  “No flying over the river, guys.  You have to
cross it otherwise.”  With that he dove in, engaging his grabber units to
pull him along underwater.  He hit forty kilometers per hour in seconds,
and crossed the river in half a minute, surfacing and coming out of the water just
as the first of his men jumped in.
    Cornelius could
track them crossing the river by the wakes they were stirring up.  Some
forgot to use their grabbers, both slowing them and creating more of a
disturbance on the surface.  The Captain pulled a sonic stun grenade from
a suit pouch, activated it, and tossed it into the river.  Three seconds
later it went off, sending a shock wave out in all directions that rippled the
water.
    Several suits
shot out of the water, their wearers remembering their grabbers under the
duress of sonic shock.  Walborski studied them carefully, too many rising
too far above the water, easy targets for whomever was waiting.  We’ve
got a lot more training to do before I’ve got people who can fight in
armor.  He knew they wouldn’t ever be as quiet or stealthy in armor,
despite its systems, as they would be when operating in their usual
fashion.  Still, his expectations were that they would be much better than
regular grunts.  And they would meet his expectations if he had to run
them into the ground.
    After half of
his men made it across before he turned away and started through the woods
himself.  He had just attended a week of training in the suits, part of
the effort to let the teaching trickle down.  Even so, he was having
problems slipping the suit through the thick woods, something he normally
prided himself on, thanks to his work as a game guide on New Detroit. 
This was a more serious business than helping rich lords find their trophy
animal.   This was going to be life or death, and not just for them.
    The last
obstacle was just ahead, and about thirty of the men had already hit it, and
been hit back.  Suits stood in frozen positions all up and down the bare
slope of the hill.  There were soldiers at the top of the hill, sighting down
their laser rifles, set on ultra-low power, taking sighted shots at every suit
they could see.  As the lasers hit the medium suits the training programs
kicked in, and the armor froze in place for exactly thirty seconds.
    A few more
Rangers stepped onto the slope, coming out of the woods before they noted their
frozen fellows.  One ducked back into the woods, the other two stopped in
place, and a moment later there was another pair of statues standing on the
hill.
    The Captain
engaged his stealth field, his suit fading into the background as its
electromag shield bent the light around it.  His own systems, set for
instructor mode, didn’t react the same way to any laser hits.  His HUD
told him when a laser contacted his field, but he didn’t freeze up the way the
others did.  When thirty seconds had passed the frozen suits started
coming back to life.  In most cases, as soon as the suit started to move
it froze up again as it was hit by another beam.  Cornelius walked up the
hill under his invisibility field, taking a couple of hits, only one a sure
strike at his suit, the other terminating with the suddenness of a sweep that
was aimed at something else.
    Moments later
some blurs came out of the woods, showing up on the Captain’s sensors from
their infrared signature.  Most stayed low to the ground, taking advantage
of what cover and concealment there was, just as they had been trained. 
Most made it a third of the way, some even half way, before they were hit.
    Walborski
listened in as the company began to shake out into its individual platoons and
squads, plans made, orders