The Fleet 01 Read Online Free PDF Page A

all, but a free man with a fine horse along with all the others on Eire who’d be picking up the pieces once the raid was over.
    Of course, he’d never believed that, not about being free.
    But he’d never thought that Pride would die on his account. And then something hit him once more. This was something that hit so hard, he couldn’t even tell if it hurt. There was just an impact, and then there was nothing more.

    The Khalian pirates cavorted over the cache in the cave. When the big animals were all dead, the human slaves counted, and the loot divided, there was much to celebrate. The high-priced slaves were obvious. These were fat, sleek, and heavily decorated. The woman’s face was painted and she was not scarred or stretched from whelping. They had fun with her, and her tight-arsed companion.
    These slaves and their booty were coffled with the crazy slave, who nonetheless was strong, the one who’d come charging into the bivouac area, and these were marched to the manor house, where the team tagged the newcomers and secured them before moving on. A beacon would guide the booty ship to the cache.
    The Khalian raiders themselves had received an order to proceed to the extraction site, which they did, playful and raucous now that their work was done. Of course, there was some biting and scuffling among the ranks, now that there was time for it, over protocols and slights. Many noses were harshly bitten by the squad commander over the surprise attack of the big four-footed animal, and the charge of the single human slave. But it was nothing for which a raider needed to die. There were enough spoils to make up for any sloppy conduct. A roll on your back, a crawl on your belly, submitting your nose to disciplinary teeth, and all was forgiven.
    The sortie leader, when they made the hilltop, let out a great howl, his throat arched in the moonlight. The others took up the triumphant call, and the planet Eire trembled under the Khalian raiders’ fury for as far as that howl could be heard.

    There wasn’t much to fight, by the time English’s strike force put down in Cork. He leaned against one of the long, lateral landing fins of his APC and squinted up at the sky, where, beyond the cloud deck of early morning, Padova, in the Haig, might be having better luck.
    Lieutenant English’s men were still off-loading ground support vehicles. Had to go through the motions. But the marine’s instincts told him there were no Khalia here. The deep indentations in the sward where they’d landed—and lifted off—proved him right. As did the silent, dead town where nothing but casualties could be found.
    The hospital, the administrative buildings, everything—what hadn’t been bombed had been hosed down pretty good. It was like any other war zone, only this one deserved the drubbing it had taken.
    Toby English had had an odd feeling, during drop, as his craft put out from the belly of the Haig, like some part of him had just been severed.
    It was a weird, quick, anguishing moment. He felt as if his neck had snapped, but the pain came and went and then everything was fine. In his helmet and ground-attack electronics, that was easy to check out. He was monitored like any other piece of expensive equipment. And expensive he was, with what the Fleet had put into him, added to what the marines had spent, training him up to where he wasn’t a hick from Eire any longer.
    And he wasn’t. He felt a satisfaction he couldn’t admit, and something deeper, as he walked his men, in careful wide maneuvers, through the murdered town of Cork. This time, the gutted bodies, the missing livers, the torn-out hearts, the slit throats—none of it bothered him like it usually did.
    This time, he had a certain amount of empathy for the raiders. Or hostility toward the casualties. Civilians: he routinely risked his life to protect them. They were the warp and woof of the Alliance, the taxpayers. But Cork was hell; Toby English knew it like nobody