Conquest of Earth (Stellar Conquest Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

she pointed, “and you too, Bull, get out and grab the edge of the sled. We’re going to roll it over.” Like people tipping a ground car, the six lined up and slid their armored hands beneath it. “All together, one, two, three, lift .”
    Servos groaned as six tons of powered armor, backed by the Marines’ internal cybernetics and nanotechnology, levered the heavy sled upward. Had Io’s gravity not been approximately that of Luna, about one sixth of a G, this would have been impossible, but they manhandled the vehicle, rolling it crunching over wreckage until it fell with a crash onto its long ferrocrystal skids.
    Exposed and free, the armored blister housing the Recluse battle drone burst open as Butler blew its explosive bolts, and the mechanical spider unfolded itself to stand next to the personnel carrier. It lifted one of its two small waldoes to wave, and then unlimbered a heavy pulse cannon and spun it around in a three-sixty as Butler tested out its systems. “Good to go,” the pilot said.
    Suddenly an explosion knocked down one of Massimo’s gunners, and Bull dove for cover, his plasma rifle belching sunfire while the rest of the Marines hit the deck. “Reaper, Massimo, get those semis working while I cover you!” Looking through his HUD, Bull fired and moved toward the next sled, where line Marines already blazed away into the haze from kneeling positions. He tried to tell what they were shooting at even as carets appeared in front of his eyes marking the enemy positions, the suit’s systems backtracking the shots. Behind him, the Recluse picked its way over the rubble, its gun swiveling to fire above the big Marine’s head.
    In front of him, one of Bull’s Marines spun and fell, her weapon and the arm holding it blown to bits by some kind of high-velocity shell. The hard suit would tourniquet the limb, pumping her full of drugs and extra nano. In a few minutes, she should be back on her feet, and assuming she survived the next hour or two, in a few months she would have her arm back, courtesy of the Eden Plague.
    “Keep low and use your HUDs, diggers,” Bull snarled as he took his own advice, placing his targeting reticle over the caret marking the source of incoming fire. Triggering a long burst, he was rewarded with a secondary explosion as something, probably a powerpack, blew. “Trust your active sensors and keep firing,” he continued.
    Conquest ’s railgun-plus-particle-beam sledgehammer had ignited everything flammable just as expected, filling the enemy base with thick, oily smoke. Bull’s surroundings continued to clarify as sonar, radar, IR lidar and several other sensors pumped energies into the burning haze. Friendlies flickered like ghosts to his left and right, while squat ugly shapes moved in front of him.
    “Reaper, we got some kinda tanks out here,” Bull commed as he fired another long blast of blue plasma. The ravening flame washed over the armored vehicle nosing through the gloom just before it swiveled its turret toward him. Pulse cannon shots from the Recluse hammered at the enemy, but its front glacis shrugged off the fire. Its antipersonnel rounds knocked Marines over, but the new battlesuits seemed tough enough to take it.
    “Down!” Bull yelled as the tank’s main gun spoke. Its high-explosive shell struck the ground and threw him several meters to the left. His head rang and he saw double, bruised all along his side. “They’re using HEAT,” he groaned, surprised they would face such low tech as high explosive anti-tank shells. On the other hand, old-fashioned high-velocity tank guns were rugged, much more so than railguns, and a straight-on hit from one would kill just as dead as something fancier.
    “Anti-armor teams, engage,” he heard someone order as he struggled to clear his head. As far as he could see on his HUD as he lay there, the enemy tanks had survived the immolating fire, but he saw no enemy infantry, nor even war drones. The sledgehammer had