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9: The Attack

Hidden from view by the dense cover of the trees on his assigned hilltop Matt had just finished his scan of the enemy fortress twelve kilometers distant and was about to enter the coordinates of its gun towers into his weapon's fire control memory when he grinned and said, "Good morning colonel."

"Good morning lieutenant," replied his sister. She dismissed her assistants and approached him with the laden down gravity sled. "I brought you some food and an extra twenty thousand rounds for your high speed gun just in case you needed them." She placed her hand on her hip and stared up at him. "How long have you known that we were coming up the hill?"

"For about ten minutes." He turned and faced her, "I was told by some of your people that the Dorzeli could embarrass bloodhounds."

"By 'your people' are you talking about those under my command or non-Dorzeli in general?"

Her question had caught him off guard and he hesitated before he said, "Come on sis, I haven't gone that far over the line." Yet, he thought to himself.

She laughed. "I'm only kidding; don't look so serious."

He looked in the direction of the fortress and frowned. "If this attack doesn't go well I might never see you or Feih again."

"Cheer up lieutenant, and that's an order." She moved closer to him and placed her hand on the same leg she had punched the other day. "I'll make sure she makes it out okay."

He turned back to her and smiled. "You've always looked out for me when I was little so I shouldn't expect any less from you, especially now." He winked at her then started to unload the ammunition from the cart. "I haven't seen much of you since Daihas carried you off the other night; you had already left when we returned that morning. Did you two have an interesting time?"

She folded her arms in front of her. "He definitely did but it probably wasn't as interesting as yours."

Matt blushed, "I found out about what happened at the camp when one of the Dorzeli-An let it slip out. I knew Dorzeli pheromones could affect humans and other Dorzeli, but I thought we were too far away for it to affect anyone and Jason didn't tell us anything when we returned that morning and found everyone was gone except for him."

"He didn't want you and Feih to know about that little orgy you two caused." She laughed. "He figured that would've been too much of a shock after the reprimand he gave you for scaring those two soldiers."

He frowned and looked down the hill to make sure no one else was within ear shot. "I still can't believe that we did that to them, but at the time it felt so right and so good that...I guess we went too far." Matt lowered his head and looked at the ground. "I should have known better."

"I think it turned out for the best though; what happened brought everyone closer together, especially those two." She decided, for old time's sake, to rub it in a bit more when she saw some signs of relief on his part. "I heard that the M.P.'s had their hands full all that night trying to pull people apart before the aroma from you two also overcame them. And poor Posk, he's going to have another litter to worry about now."

"Okay that's enough kidding sis," growled Matt.

"I wasn't kidding about Posk. No one pulls two Cherrodons apart and lives."

He looked at her and smiled. "No one's strong enough." Then a look of concern returned to his face. "Did Daihas treat you well? You never did say exactly what happened out there and he refuses to talk about it."

A satisfied look came over Sarah's face at the mention of his name. "Initially we only talked. He told me that he was impressed at the way you'd beaten him. I told him I couldn't take all the credit. Then we heard you and Feih enjoying yourselves."

"Sarah!"

"You know you have the cutest growl through your teeth like that. Anyway, I found him to be very caring and gentle, not like all the stories I've heard about him."

He sighed. "I guess it was like you said the other day, he only did those things to his enemies. But what about..." He stopped when she looked away for a moment then returned her attention to him.

"They just brought Hatelo in and it seems they're having a problem keeping Feih away from her." She looked back at him. "Do those two have a history?"

He snickered, "You might say that." He then when back to his original question, "But what'll happen when she matures into a Dorzeli?"

"There won't be any problem there; you know that the Dorzeli allow multiple mates and she's agreed to it." She paused when she received another message. "I'd better get back down there before things get out of hand. I'd promised to protect her when she offered to help us with the security codes."

Before he could ask her how she persuaded the Soriss to cooperate they received the final command to ready themselves for the attack. Matt decided he might not want to know and lowered himself until his face was level with his sister's. She smiled and rubbed his left cheek with her hand. "Good luck Matt."

He licked her face, tasted something wonderful and expected, then said, "Take care Sarah."

Moments after she left he heard a series of explosions off to his far left. All he was able to filter out from the busy communication channels was that the Gresiels had attacked a Soriss patrol that had turned out to be a much larger force; what should have been a silent skirmish had escalated into a major firefight.

He was surprised when Jason made direct contact with him, "Open fire now before they can raise their shields!" Then in the background he heard him curse, "This whole plan's fucked up because of them."

The subsonic growl Matt heard in his voice told him that his commander almost lost it that time. He added that fear to his list as he charged up his cannon's particle accelerators, but, even with his fast reflexes it still took five seconds for the plasma injector to cycle and warm up to its operational temperature: by the time got off his first shot the Soriss shield was active and stopped his beam well short of it's target.

With his position compromised Matt gathered up as much of his equipment as he could and ran to a prearranged secondary position. He fought the urge to look back when he heard the Soriss guns decapitate the hill he had just vacated.

He also worried about his sister until she signaled him over the comm-link that she was okay and that she had to observe radio silence for the rest of the battle.

Less than a minute later he was on top of a second hill and had almost finished preparations for taking a second shot when the opportunity arrived when he witnessed twelve Cherrodons followed by a wave of hover tanks break out into the open field that led to the fortress.

The Soriss responded with their own armor and something unexpected: two light cruisers! They rose from behind the base and moved forward and fired down upon the Alliance forces and were followed by over two dozen fighters.

Matt knew that this development was not accounted for in the original plan and was unsure as what to do. If he fired on the cruisers or fighters the towers would spot him again and if he fired on the towers he would be discovered by the cruisers.

He felt his heart sink when he saw those same cruisers destroy two Alliance tanks while the Cherrodons held their own against all incoming fire, but he knew that they could not keep up that level of concentration against that kind of firepower for more than fifteen minutes once their power packs were exhausted.

Before he could come to a decision several explosions rocked the first cruiser. He looked up and saw that the fighters from the fleet had arrived as planned! Then he was addressed again, this time by a Mendallian voice.

"Lieutenant Thorn, do not respond: This is Colonel Yurex Creduta of the Combined Alliance Fleet. We'll keep the fighters and the cruisers busy until the start of the orbital bombardment. When it stops follow the original plan."

He watched as, for the first time since the war had begun, the Soriss become hopelessly outnumbered. The mixed group of more than fifty earth and Mendalli craft and ground fire from the Cherrodons destroyed all of the Soriss fighters and tanks within five minutes and forced the second cruiser to retreat. Then, to his horror, he watched the damaged cruiser descend towards the allied ground forces in an apparent suicide run.

He felt that he had no choice; he leveled his gun at the enemy craft and fired. The near sun bright beam caused a massive explosion that sent the remains of Soriss ship backward toward the base. He did not have much time to marvel at the true firepower of his weapon. Intense bright shafts of light shot down from the sky and struck the base and both cruisers. They destroyed the damaged ship in a brilliant explosion that temporarily blinded him (only the Cherrodon's shielding power kept those on the battlefield from being fatally irradiated. Matt was safe because the Dorzeli had been engineered to withstand large acute doses of radiation).

When his vision returned he saw to his dismay that the base was still intact along with the last cruiser which had retreated to a position directly over it. The reason for this maneuver became clear when a second orbital barrage struck. Its shields held for a few seconds before it too was destroyed, but the fortress was left untouched.

"Repeat we are pinned down by heavy enemy fire. We need air support now!"

Matt's concern for the safety of his sister's team rose and was not helped by what he heard next.

"I'm sorry colonel," began Yurex, "but more of their ships just came out of warp and, as per Jason's orders, we must stop them at all costs."

He watched as the fighters climbed out of sight.

"Jason, don't!"

Sarah's cry of alarm over her still open link was followed by an enormous explosion that shook the ground so hard that several Cherrodons were knocked off of their feet. It also caused one of the gun towers that, unknown to him, had locked on his position to fall over. He was just able to hang onto his gun when the shock wave reached him.

"This is central command. The shield is down; repeat the Soriss shield is down. All guns fire at will." With that message every recovered Cherrodon and undamaged vehicle renewed their assault and hidden gun emplacements, now safe from aerial attack, fired high explosive ordinance onto the structure.

Matt set to work on his original task and destroyed all of the remaining gun towers. His concentration on his duty was so great that he failed to see the top of the base open until the panicked voice of his sister broke his concentration, "Oh my God. Matt, get the hell out of there!"

Happy to hear that his sister was all right he looked up and recognized the new threat. He prayed that Feih and Sarah would survive to see the end of the battle then locked his gun's automatic targeting systems onto this one last target.