A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

AI could be annoying in its habits at times, and casualty rates discussed in its calm and monotone voice was one of those things for Danford.
    “Very well.” Danford said tersely. Don’t swear at the computer . He told himself.
    “Incoming transmission Captain.”
    “Captain Danford, Lieutenant Diggs, Lieutenant Hanford. The rest of 3 rd Battalion just landed. We will be moving to engage the enemy flank. Estimate we will engage in ten, that’s one-zero, minutes. We need you to prepare to attack in coordination with our movements. I’m sending you our attack axis. Let’s prepare a warm reception for our would-be ambushers.” Lieutenant Colonel Cain’s voice came over the comm, sounding for all the world like a thunder storm.
    “All units, Code Trinity, I repeat, Code Trinity. Impact in one-zero seconds. Hug the dirt marines!” Colonel Katrina Summers, commander of 2 nd Regiment, issued the warning over the comm, overriding any other communication currently on any line and delivering the warning to the entire force on the ground in a single instant. The enemy had just gone nuclear.
    Danford figured he didn’t have time to dive back inside his bunker, so he crouched low behind his outcropping, hoping that the rest of his marines were doing the same. He glanced at the tactical overlay, moving his head slightly from side to side to see the weapons arcing in towards his position. Company level units were too small to have their own AA, their best defense being an extended line formation. The Regiment had the AA, but it required actual landers and the LZ was too hot and too small to risk the AA or the precious few landers available on the transports.
    Danford cursed himself for not adapting a more spread formation, but this was their world, he hadn’t expected the PRC High Command to authorize nuclear weapons on any scale so close to a prime port like Haikou. Obviously he had been wrong, the twelve small rockets tracing towards him proof of that. He flipped to his company comm.
    “Heads down, visors off.” Danford ducked his head between his arms and braced himself. The blasts and rumbles in the ground came a half second later. He saw the temperature of his suit rise rapidly, blowing past one-thousand degrees centigrade in an instant before dropping off almost as rapidly. His suit could handle up to eighteen-hundred degree centigrade almost indefinitely and even as high as twenty-one-hundred for short periods of time, but it was still a dangerous place to be. He felt the injection from his suit as it gave him drugs to counteract the likely radiation leakage. The shielding in his armor and the terrain itself was only able to stop so much. He made sure the comm was off and then asked his AI. “Assessment?”
    “The warheads appear to be the standard PRC free-flight rockets with warheads set to their minimum yield of five kilotons. Targeting priorities suggest that they are not certain of troop concentrations, the rockets targeted almost the entire LZ.” The AI paused in its report, waiting to be prompted to continue. Danford didn’t prompt, he was already looking at the information on his display.
    “They completely missed most of the strongpoints. Looks like they just wanted us to keep our heads down. That and the jamming must be working, they would have gotten better effects if they had the intel.” Danford flipped to company wide comm. “I want everyone keeping their eyes open. Any indications of the enemy weakening their line, trying to disengage, I want to know about it. Even just a feeling, pass it on up.” He closed to comm. “Connect me to Lieutenants Diggs and Hanford.”
    As he spoke, Danford felt and heard the arrival of conventional enemy artillery. Whoever was in command on the other side had apparently decided that giving up the location of some of their big guns was worth it after that strike.
    “Done.”
    “Alright, that looked like a covering move to me. Thoughts?” Danford wanted to