Swords and Saddles by Jack Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

continuing their withdrawal.
    “Cease fire!” Another shot rang out and Singh glowered at Burgos. “Cease fire, dammit!”
    “Oh, man.” Goldera stared at the mounds of dead Izkop outside. “They’re crazy. They just kept coming. We are so dead.”
    “They’ll be back,” Singh agreed, “but we’re not dead yet.”
    A wild mooo echoed through the sky, followed by the appearance of the cow trotting quickly across the yard, her panic-stricken eyes huge and rolling as she dodged the piles of dead.
    The soldiers simply watched it wordlessly for a long moment before Archer said something in a wondering voice. “They didn’t kill the cow?”
    Another long silence, then Stein spoke with great deliberation. “Maybe they like cows.”
    Archer grinned, too wide and too stressed for the gesture to represent real humor. “Next time they hit us, I’m going to be behind that cow.”
    “No. I mean it. Maybe they’re like the Sarge’s people.”
    Singh bent a severe look on Stein. “I’m a Sikh, not a Hindu.”
    “Oh. Right.”
    “Anybody hurt? No? Ammo inventory,” Singh ordered.
    Nassar waved toward the discarded buzz-saw. “I’ve got sixty-five rifle rounds left, but the machine gun’s out. Now it’s only good for hitting them over the head with.”
    “We’ll probably need it for that,” Adowa said. “Thirty-two rifle rounds remaining, Sarge, plus twenty for my pistol.”
    “I got forty,” Archer reported. “Uh, no pistol,” she added unnecessarily since as the comm carrier she didn’t also lug a side arm.
    “Thirty-one,” Stein said in an apologetic voice. “And one clip for the pistol. That’s twenty, right?”
    “You taking time to aim again, Stein?” Goldera joked in a strained voice. “I got twenty-nine for the rifle. No pistol.”
    “What happened to your side arm?” Johansen demanded.
    “I dunno. When we got clear of the drop ship it wasn’t there. I didn’t think I should go back looking for it.”
    “Eleven rounds rifle, twenty pistol,” Burgos said, then looked away when Singh glared at her again.
    “We need to exercise fire discipline,” the sergeant said coldly. “Corporal?”
    “Twenty-four and twenty for the pistol,” Johansen said.
    Singh looked out the window, his eyes calculating. “We might be able to fight off another attack before the ammo is gone. Maybe not. Then it’ll be hand-to-hand.”
    “They got a lot more hands than we do,” Adowa said. “Any chance we can get some of those spears off the bodies out there? Those have more reach than our combat knives.”
    ‘It wouldn’t hurt.” Singh turned his gaze back on them. “Not at night. It’d give us cover, but it’d give the Izkop a lot more. Any volunteers to go out there now?”
    Johansen blew out a tired breath into the silence. “I’ll go.”
    “Me, too,” Goldera hastened to add. The others removed the barricade at the front door enough for the two to slip out, then Johansen and Goldera scuttled toward some of the dead Izkop, staying low.
    Johansen grabbed some of the spears, watching carefully in case any of the Izkop were playing possum and still able to stab. He passed the spears to Goldera, who kept one eye on the fields beyond the compound. “Hey, corporal,” Goldera whispered.
    “Yeah?”
    “You scared?”
    “Damn right.”
    “Me, too,” Goldera confessed. “If you get out of this and I don’t, write my mama and tell her I did okay even though I was scared. Will you do that?”
    “Sure.” He picked up a final two spears. “That’s two apiece for all of us. Let’s get back inside.”
    “You got anybody you want me to tell anything if you don’t make it?” Goldera asked Johansen.
    Johansen didn’t have to think about it. “Nah. Not anymore.” Then they were squeezing inside and the door being sealed again in their wake.
    Singh had them all try out the spears, which Johansen found to be well-balanced for stabbing though far too front-heavy for throwing. Then everyone