The Lost Stars 01-Tarnished Knight by Jack Campbell Read Free Book Online

copies through some inspired hacking. Now more of Drakon’s troops reached the wall to place breaching charges specially formulated to blow through that armor. “Take cover!”
    The assault troops nearest the wall huddled back as the charges detonated, directing a series of blasts against the fortified exterior to tear two-meter-wide and -high holes in the walls. On the heels of the detonations, the assault troops poured through the gap, knowing that any defenses right behind the wall would have been taken out along with the wall itself.
    Drakon went with the troops, knowing that if he were alone he might have trouble nerving himself to leap into the face of the enemy defenses, but he was able to overcome his dread by staying in a group. Once through the hole, Drakon hurled himself to one side as a volley of high-intensity fire ripped down the hallway the gap opened into.
That’s not any internal automated defense. We must have run into a viper strongpoint.
Fear forgotten for the moment under the demands of decision-making, Drakon checked the IDs of the soldiers closest to him. The symbols representing those soldiers glowed on the display that projected information onto the faceplate of his armor, showing exactly where they were on a schematic of this floor of the ISS complex. “Second squad, take cover and return fire to keep those vipers busy. Everyone else, head north with me.”
    There wasn’t time to worry now. Drakon had attention only for the map on his helmet display and the glimpses he could catch of the actual building around him through the dust and smoke thrown up by the breaching charges and the fighting. He and the soldiers with him had barely entered the next passage when barrages of defensive fire began raking it as well. Drakon hit the floor, fuming with anger at the holdup, then checked the floor plan on his helmet display again before calling out orders. “Fire some concealment rounds and EMP charges toward those defenders. Combat engineer team sigma, blow a hole in the floor just around the corner.”
    The concealment charges turned the area between Drakon and the vipers into a fog impenetrable by sensors, and a few moments later that area of the building shook as the combat engineers blasted the hole. Drakon and the troops with him crawled back and around the corner, then as the vipers continued to pour fire down the now-empty corridor, he and the others dropped through the new access to the next lower level.
    That level felt oddly quiet, even though the building was shuddering as firefights raged throughout other sections. Doctrine called for Drakon to pause now and evaluate his entire force posture before ordering coordinated attacks, but he had trained his soldiers to operate without detailed orders even though such an approach was discouraged by a Syndicate hierarchy which rightly feared independent thinking. Drakon’s approach to training paid off, as individual platoons and squads from the attacking force spread through the building along every open path, like water flooding an area without adequate protection.
    The snakes seemed to be reacting slowly, though, waiting for orders before they shifted position. The delays were often fatal, as soldiers surrounded and wiped out pockets of defenders.
    Drakon’s helmet display kept fuzzing and sputtering as the jamming systems inside the ISS building as well as the building’s structure blocked signals. But so many soldiers were inside the building, each of the combat armor suits relaying signals to every other suit of armor within range, that Drakon still got a halfway-decent picture of events. “This way,” he ordered the soldiers with him, diverting to the south along a short corridor as the roar of battle grew in intensity again. Fear had become a distant thing, lost in the need to concentrate on developments and keep moving fast.
    A sudden alert pierced the pounding of the gunfire. Drakon paused to eye the symbol, which told him that this