Chapter 2

As Sergeant Tolbar was finishing his story, the thirty-man fast reaction force arrived in six Humvees. Seeing soldiers in ACUs guarding the perimeter around the what ever it was, they did not open fire. By the time they arrived; Sergeant Michaels, Specialist Flynn, and PFC Lincoln pulled Lincoln's S&P upright and checked it for damage. It would run, but it needed some bodywork.

Staff Sergeant Juan Ortiz was in charge of the rapid reaction force. The first thing he noticed was the strange box shaped object. Then he noticed that none of the vehicles in the convoy was moving. Basic doctrine for an ambush was to try and out run the ambush, not park and gawk.

After briefly scanning the area, he instructed his people to climb out and reinforce the perimeter, then he said. "OK who's in charge of this Charlie Foxtrot?"

Over his headphones he heard. "This is Sergeant Michaels. I'm second in command. Sergeant First Class Thomas is inside the shuttle questioning the prisoners, and Lieutenant Johnson is dead. Before you say a word, you need to talk to Sergeant Thomas."

"OK, I'll talk to her, but this better be good. I can't think of any reason why you parked here instead of heading for a base."

Robert walked up and stuck out his hand. "I'm Michaels, if you will come with me I'll take you to Sergeant Thomas. She can explain everything. Just a word of warning, you may see some things you're not going to believe."

"Michaels where is this shuttle you are talking about?"

Sergeant Michaels pointed out what looked like a huge box sitting on the ground to Sergeant Ortiz. Looking at it, Ortiz expressed doubts that the thing could move. He definitely was skeptical when Michaels told him it could not only fly, but it could also fight.

Walking up the ramp of the shuttle, Sergeant Michaels warned Ortiz about the change in gravity inside the shuttle. Ortiz thought Michaels was kidding him when suddenly it fell like he was falling. Looking down he could see that both of his feet were firmly planted on the deck of the shuttle. Looking around, Ortiz spotted four bodies lined up on the floor like they were prepped for Graves Registration. The only thing was, these people had the grayest skin Ortiz had ever seen and they were wearing what looked like uniforms.

The uniforms were the most outlandish thing Ortiz had seen, bright yellow shirt, royal blue pants, and calf length boots. These had definitely been parade ground soldiers. In passing, Ortiz noted that someone kicked in all four of their heads. Looking toward the front of the shuttle, he spotted two soldiers in ACUs carrying rifles that definitely were not standard issue. They both had their rifles loosely trained on someone dressed in the same type of uniform as the bodies. Next to him was a soldier about five feet ten inches tall in ACUs.

Taking a closer look, he recognized SFC Carol Thomas, a platoon sergeant in the 311^th FSB. She was holding another one of the rifles, and seemed to be discussing it with the grey skinned man in the yellow shirt. As Ortiz and Michaels approached Sergeant Thomas, she said. "Computer, stop all translations from English to Raznits until instructed. Continue translating Raznits into English."

"I had a nice talk with the pilot in charge of this shuttle. With two people holding energy rifles set on kill it's amazing how willing he was to transfer all control of the shuttle to me. Now the shuttle's computer only responds to my commands. I locked him out completely. When he flies us back to the mother ship, I'll give him just enough control to pilot the ship and communicate after I approve the message."

"Why are we going to the mother ship?" asked Sergeant Ortiz.

In response, Sergeant Thomas told the two Sergeants everything she learned from Sergeant Tolbar. She emphasized the Raznits wanted to turn all the people on Earth into slaves, including the families of the troops in the 11^th Armored. She also told them about the other four shuttles which would return to the Tavnit Oma in approximately one hour. With travel time, they would need to leave within twenty minutes, or the failure of this shuttle to return would warn the crew of the Tavnit Oma there was a problem.

Sergeant Thomas proceeded to outline her plan. She intended to load the shuttle with as many soldiers, and as much ammunition as it could hold. When they arrived, she intended to seize the ship and prevent the crew from notifying Raznits of Earth's existence. After discussing it briefly, Sergeant Michaels and Sergeant Ortiz agreed to Thomas' plan. They would leave five soldiers with a pair of 240 Bravos guarding the convoy's vehicles. Sergeant Ortiz would call for additional back up. That would leave an assault force of forty-two men and women to take the ship. From what Sergeant Tolbar said, there were only seventy Tuvet Marat remaining, counting the ones on the other shuttles.

Sergeant Thomas assigned five of the truck drivers to guard the vehicles. She kept the entire rapid reaction force for the assault. Sergeant Michaels contacted Specialist Flynn and had him grab all the zip strips in the two maintenance vans. They could use these instead of plastic handcuffs. Searching the two service vans, Flynn found four packages of a hundred each.

Thomas knew that one of the pallets on the PLS Lieutenant Johnson was riding in contained a shipment of ammunition and M-4 magazines for the troops at FOB Turner. She ordered four people to open the container, and pull out 250 extra magazines for the M-4s and 8,000 rounds of ammunition. Additionally, she had them pull four boxes of 7.62mm ammunition for the 240's. The troops could load the extra magazines on the way to the Tavnit Oma.

Sergeant Ortiz had his men dismount all of the 240 Bravos from the gun trucks. The 11 Bravos (infantry) and cav scouts helped the truck drivers set up a defensive position. Sergeant Thomas then told the truck drivers to hold until the relief force arrived. When Sergeant Ortiz explained what he needed, the Company Commander thought he was crazy. Why would you show up at a stranded convoy then request eleven drivers and four fully rigged gun trucks? Then Ortiz requested four 240 Bravos and six turret gunners for his gun trucks. After about a minute's worth of discussion, the CO agreed to send the troops and let Ortiz explain when he returned to the base.

All of this took the better part of ten minutes. During this time, Sergeant Michaels convinced Sergeant Thomas to take him along on the mission. As he told Thomas, the Lieutenant had been good to him and he wanted to payback the people who killed her. The truth was, Lieutenant Johnson tracked him down after Miguel died, and let him know before he found out through the grapevine.

Also, she gave him some very good advice. She told him that he needed to take a pass on reenlistment. Someone turned him in under don't ask don't tell, and the LT did not want to kick him out if he would leave on his own. Except for don't ask don't tell, Sergeant Michaels would have made a career out of the Army. He liked his job, he liked the people, and he liked the benefits.

In Iraq, he was beginning to see that the old joke about the Army motto was not a joke at all. According to the joke, the motto of the U.S. Army was, 'join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people, and kill them.' With the way Hajji operated there was a lot of truth in that. Now Sergeant Michaels had met some very interesting aliens and had a strong desire to kill as many of them as possible. If the Raznits thought they could enslave the population of Earth, they would have to do it over his dead body. He wasn't a door kicker, but he definitely could kill people if the situation required it. With the Raznits, the situation definitely seemed to require killing or capturing all of them.

When Michaels mentioned this to Sergeant Ortiz, the Sergeant told him. "A good soldier never kills out of anger. A good soldier kills because he needs to kill to complete the mission. Just remember, when in doubt, kill them and let God sort it out."

The more Michaels thought about it, the more sense it made. If you started killing out of hate, when did you stop? If you killed out of necessity, then you stopped when it was no longer required to complete the mission.

With five minutes to spare, the troops loaded the last box of ammunition and offloaded the bodies of the four Tuvet Marat. SFC Thomas verified that the second relief column was inbound to the ambush site, then ordered the shuttle's ramp closed. Using her command overrides, she authorized Lieutenant Collut to take off and return to the ship. She kept the shuttle on radio silence by locking out all transmission functions while leaving the receiver turned on. This way, if the ship hailed the shuttle, she could decide whether to answer.

Once the shuttle took off, Sergeant Thomas ordered the shuttle's computer to show a schematic of the Tavnit Oma. While questioning Sergeant Tolbar, she determined that all weapons were secured in the armory unless the Tuvet Marat was practicing with them, or conducting operations like this one. From this she developed a three-pronged attack on the ship. She would split her forces into four groups.

The first group, under the command of Sergeant John Smith, would retain two of the 240 Bravos and hold the shuttle bay. The other two 240 Bravo crews would act as a rapid reaction force. The second group, under SSG Ortiz, would rush to the armory and secure it before the Tuvet Marat could draw weapons. The third group, under Sergeant Michaels, would seize control of engineering, and the ships drives. The forth group, under SFC Thomas, would seize control of the bridge and neutralize the Captain.

The three Sergeants used the holographic schematic to plot the best route to each of their objectives. The armory was almost dead center in the ship. This reduced the chances of the armory's destruction during a battle. Sergeant Michaels looked at the complex route to main engineering, and commented that he really would like a printed map. The computer then asked him if he wanted it to print one out. When they found out about the print capability, each Sergeant ordered a printed map to their objective, with all side passages and alternative routes included. Two minutes later, the three of them were comparing their personal print out to the hologram, and making notes.

Sergeant Thompson then addressed the troops before she split them into assault groups.

"OK troops listen up. I want to explain to you exactly what is going on here before we reach the ship." Grabbing Sergeant Tolbar by his forearm she forced him to stand next to her. "This piece of shit is Sergeant Tolbar of the Tuvet Marat. Tolbar belongs to a race called the Raznits. His job is to keep slaves in line. It seems that Sergeant Tolbar and the other Raznits think you, me, and our families will make good slaves.

"The purpose of this mission is to deliver a message to the Raznits on the spaceship we are heading for. That message is, 'Don't Fuck with Humans'. We are going to seize the ship to prevent them from notifying their Emperor and his cronies that there is a new slave planet out here. Then we are going to turn the ship over to the U.S. Army so we can figure out a way to take the fight to the Raznits.

"Before I divide you up into groups for the assault, I need some temporary snipers. Who here shoots expert?" Four hands went up. "Who shoots forty?" Linda Barlow and Specialist Roger Tillman kept their hands up. "Barlow, Tillman, report to me when the briefings start.

"Listen up for your assignments. Sergeant Smith has first squad, which will guard our backs by holding the shuttle bay. Sergeant Ortiz has second squad, they'll take down the armory. Sergeant Michaels has third squad, they will capture engineering. Finally, I have fourth squad, we're going after the bridge."

Sergeant Thomas proceeded to divide the troops among four squads. She placed Barlow and Tillman in Sergeant Smith's squad. Thomas and Smith explained that as soon as the shuttle landed, two other soldiers would boost Barlow and Tillman to the roof of the shuttle with their M-4s. Their job was to study the pictures of the senior officers of the Tavnit Oma; if they spotted one in the shuttle bay they were to kill him immediately. Sergeant Thomas wanted to disrupt the chain of command to give her troops any advantage possible. After killing any officers, the two of them were to take out any Tuvet Marat that had not surrendered. The rest of Sergeant Smith's squad was to secure the shuttles, then neutralize any remaining resistance in the shuttle bay.

Sergeants Thomas, Ortiz, and Michaels would use their squads to take out any Tuvet Marat in the shuttle bay before moving forward to their objectives. Sergeant Smith's squad would mop up any resistance from maintenance personnel or shuttle pilots. If at all possible, they were to keep the shuttle pilots alive, but if they did not surrender, then the squad would kill them and worry about the consequences later.

As they were finishing their briefing, the shuttle computer announced the shuttle was on final approach for the Tavnit Oma's shuttle bay. Sergeant Smith's squad gathered at the shuttle ramp ready to leave first. Every one of them had ten zip strips to use as handcuffs if the pilots or other Raznits surrendered.

Approaching the shuttle bay, Sergeant Thomas instructed the computer to record and translate all messages from the pilot to flight control. She then instructed the computer to only transmit the message with her approval. The pilot gave her a sour look. He had been planning to warn flight control of his unusual cargo before they landed. He had seen the bodies of the four Tuvet Marat and had not doubt in his mind that these forty two soldiers could take his ship and strand him here forever. He had no desire to be someone's personal slave.

Shuttle 3 made its final approach, entering the shuttle bay and docked in its usual place between shuttle 2 and shuttle 4. As they say sometimes it is better to be lucky than smart. The position of the shuttle would allow Sergeant Thomas' troops to spread out in both directions from the shuttle ramp, and would put the snipers in the middle of the bay.

Sergeant Thomas used the shuttle's intercom to speak to her troops. "Look alive people, Lock and Load. Remember radio silence for two minutes after the ramp drops then use your radios as needed. Let's Rock and Roll." With that she pushed the button that dropped the shuttle ramp. She convinced the pilot to show her the correct button before they left Earth, and tested it prior to departure. There was no way she was going to trust this little grey weasel with her troops' lives.

Sergeant Thomas and Corporal Rivera grabbed Lieutenant Collut and yanked him out of the pilot's chair. They quickly bound his hands and feet with the zip strips. The two of them carefully placed him on the deck of the shuttle cargo compartment next to Sergeant Tolbar. Gently nudging his buttocks with her foot, Sergeant Thomas said. "Now don't you two sweet things go anywhere, I don't want you wandering off and getting lost." With that she turned, leaving PFC Rogers to guard them and the shuttle.

As soon as the shuttle ramp dropped, two of the soldiers in first squad made stirrups out of their hands to give Barlow and Tillman a boost to the roof of the shuttle. They then did a low crawl across the roof until they could see most of the shuttle bay. Scanning the room, Barlow spotted Captain Garatta and Lieutenant Major Misling inspecting about twenty humans dressed in civilian clothing. Guarding them were four Tuvet Marat with pulse rifles and what looked like an NCO with a pistol.

Barlow nudged Tillman and whispered, "The Captain and the Tuvet Marat CO are at your eleven o'clock. Did you see anyone else?"

"No it looks like other than those five Tuvet Marat, everyone else is either maintenance or prisoners. You take the one on the left I'll take the one on the right. Then you start on the Tuvet Marat from the left and I'll start with the NCO and work left."

"OK, now all we need is the signal."

First squad split left and right after boosting the snipers to the roof. At each shuttle, they assumed a position on the left and right of the shuttle ramp, and then waited for Sergeant Thomas' signal. Second and third squad broke left toward the door into the passageways leading to both the Armory and Engineering. Fourth squad broke right toward the door into the passageway leading to the bridge.

Before arriving in the shuttle bay, Sergeant Thomas determined that the computer on the shuttle could patch her into its outside speaker system through her radio headset. The computer would translate what she said into Raznits, and play it through the shuttle's loudspeakers. She also had the computer teach her the Raznits command for translate this into Raznits. That way when she reached the bridge, she could have the main computer translate her orders.

Precisely, two minutes after the first person left the shuttle, they heard Sergeant Thomas's voice say, "Now." That was the signal to start the attack. Immediately, Captain Garatta and Lieutenant Major Misling had a hole appear in their shirts at the center of the ten-ring. Garatta dropped like a rock but Misling had a surprised look come over his face before he also dropped. By this time the Tuvet Marat NCO and three of his troops were down. Their combat vests barely slowed down the jacketed 5.56 mm rounds from the M-4s. The fourth Tuvet Marat started to turn toward the sound of the gunfire as he died. All across the bay, Raznits sailors died before Sergeant Thomas could announce. "Surrender or die. Put both of your hands in the air."

The civilians just stood there stunned by the sudden death that blossomed all around them. Starting with English, Sergeant Thomas went through several languages telling the people to get down. When she hit Spanish they all dived to the deck. She then ordered them to stay down until someone told them to standup.

By this time, all the Raznits in the bay were either dead, or soldiers were binding their hands behind them. Five of the survivors did not look like Raznits or Humans. These were three Darii and two Bentali slaves. First squad managed to capture three of the four remaining shuttle pilots alive. The fourth tried to draw his pistol, so the two soldiers assigned to capture his shuttle shot him.

Sergeant Thomas contacted Sergeant Smith and informed him the shuttle bay was now his responsibility. Before, leading her squad toward the bridge, she determined that two of the members of first squad could speak Spanish. She promptly placed them in charge of the civilians.

By the time Sergeant Thomas left the shuttle bay, second squad under Sergeant Ortiz was half way to the armory. It was only ten meters from the shuttle bay to the armory. The trip was almost a straight shot from the shuttle bay, so the Tuvet Marat could grab their weapons and leave he ship as quickly as possible. Now that design was working against the Tuvet Marat.

Staff Sergeant Delco sat at his workbench with the pieces of a P-479 pulse rifle scattered around it. He was listening with one ear for the door to open. Only three of the crews assigned to the shuttles had turned in their weapons. The Sergeant in charge of Shuttle four reported fifteen minutes ago that his squad was in the shuttle bay. When the Captain finished viewing the new slaves, and they were properly housed in the slave quarters, the squad would return their weapons to the armory.

The Captain must be taking a really long look at this latest batch of slaves. Sergeant Delco would have to ask Sergeant Obnit what was so special about this batch of slaves that it was taking so long to settle them into the slave quarters. Sergeant Delco heard the door to the armory slide open and turned to greet Sergeant Obnit. The greeting died in his throat, as he spotted the strange looking weapon pointed at his head. He did not know what it was but it looked enough like a pulse rifle for Sergeant Delco to recognize the danger. One look at the creature holding the rifle cleared Sergeant Delco's mind of any thoughts of resistance.

The look on the creature's face was the look of a vicious predator, not a snarl, but the calm confident half smile of a rognar looking at its lunch. The rognar was the most vicious and dangerous predator on the five worlds of the Raznits Empire. Even with a pulse rifle, only the bravest Raznits hunted for rognars. At least once an annual cycle, some member of the Raznits nobility would be badly injured or died hunting rognars.

Looking behind the first creature, Sergeant Delco saw several more cautiously entering the room. He had watched some of the exercises for entering a room where someone was holding a hostage. These soldiers, yes they were definitely soldiers, could have given the instructors of the course lessons. He did not know where they learned to secure a room, but they made it look like a deadly ballet, not something you practiced once or twice a year.

The soldier said something softly then said louder in what was obviously phonetic Raznits. "Stand up slowly, turn around and put your hands behind your back. Any sudden moves and I will kill you."

As far a Sergeant Delco could tell, that last did not even need to be said. This soldier looked like he had killed many times before, and would do it again if he felt it was necessary. When Sergeant Delco turned around, the soldier placed some kind of strip around both wrists then pulled it tight. A brief tug proved to the Sergeant that his hands were not going anywhere until this soldier decided to free him. The soldier pushed him to the floor with a firm but steady pressure.

Sergeant Ortiz entered the room and determined that there was only one Raznits on duty in the Armory. Seeing that, he organized his squad into a defensive position. When the Tuvet Marat realized what was happening, the first place they would head was the armory. Sergeant Ortiz's job was to ensure that the surviving Tuvet Marat could not reach their weapons. After doing that, he contacted Sergeant Thomas and informed her, the armory was secure.

As Sergeant Thomas received notice that the armory was secure, she stopped at the last bend in the passageway before the entrance to the bridge. The shuttle computer showed two Tuvet Marat guards just outside the bridge. She informed her squad that there should be two armed troops around the next corner. She designated two of cav scouts, and told them to take out the door guards.

The hall continued on past the turn to the bridge, so the cavalry scouts decided to take the guards from both sides. One did a diving roll to the other side of the passage just as the other popped his head and weapon around the corner at chest height. Seeing the two guards standing at attention on either side of the door both soldiers fired a three round burst. This knocked the two guards down but it was obvious that one of them was still moving. A second three round burst into each guard ended the movement. Crouching as they advanced, the two cav scouts approached the downed guards. Meanwhile two more squad members assumed the positions they first two had abandoned. Less than a minute later, Sergeant Thomas heard, "Scratch two Rats."

On the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Soblat heard a noise from the direction of the passageway hatch. Turning to Ensign Minglat, the communications officer, he said. "Find out what is going on out there."

Ensign Minglat tried three times to contact the guards outside the bridge hatch. As he turned to tell the Executive Officer that there was no response from the guards, the passageway hatch slide open. Six people in very strange clothing rushed through the hatch carrying what appeared to be some type of rifle. In Raznits that sounded like the person did not speak Raznits, one of the people said. "Do not move or I will kill you." One of the bridge crew near the hatch sprang out of his chair like he was going to tackle the people with the rifles. By the time the crewmember was halfway out of his chair, Ensign Minglat heard a loud extended pop. The crewmember's shirt suddenly turned red, and he dropped to the deck, not moving.

The point man of third squad approached the hatch, labeled on the map as main engineering. So far the squad encountered four Raznits and two slaves. None of them resisted the armed men. In each case, the shuttle's computer told them how to say "Do not move or I will kill you" in Raznits. It made the conversation very limited, but effective. None of the people the squad encountered tried to resist. After binding the prisoners, a member of the squad would cut off one of the prisoner's shirt sleeves to use as a gag. That way they could not alert the others. Not wanting to leave them behind, Sergeant Michaels kept them in the back of the formation with two squad members acting as both guards for the prisoners and watching the squad's back.

Over the squad frequency, Sergeant Michaels described the attack plan. Michaels would lead three men to the engineer's office, and Specialist Flynn would lead three men to the upper gallery in the engine room. The remaining two soldiers would guard the prisoners and alert the squad if someone tried to counter attack. All ten of the people in the squad knew what the Chief Engineer and his assistant looked like after studying their pictures retrieved by the shuttle's computer from the ship's main database. All shuttles and computer terminals had access to that portion of the database to allow identification of command level officers.

Sergeant Michaels also managed to extract another piece of information from the database. The engineering staff consisted of eight, four on the day watch, two on the second watch including Lieutenant Collut, and two on the mid-watch. Entering engineering, they noticed four men bent over a piece of equipment, one of whom was the Assistant Chief Engineer. Standing back as if in a teaching mode, was the Chief Engineer. Quietly, Sergeant Michaels told Flynn to check the gallery for anyone else, then they would capture the engineering section. Two minutes later, Specialist Flynn reported that all other areas of engineering were clear.

Sergeant Michaels' half squad spread out to cover the entire room as Specialist Flynn's half squad spread out on the gallery to provide covering fire if needed. Then Sergeant Michaels said in Raznits. "Do not move, or I will kill you."

The engineering staff froze, except the Chief Engineer who spun around to see who was talking. None of the troops fired, as it was obvious he was not threatening them. Seeing the people in the strange clothing wearing helmets he froze. He then slowly said in Raznits. "Do not move, do exactly what they say. They are holding rifles."

The squad recognized the first words but did not recognize the rest of them. Michaels contacted the shuttle's computer through his radio and asked it to translate what the Chief Engineer said. The computer informed Sergeant Michaels that it did not hear what the Chief Engineer said, so he would need to repeat it. Sergeant Michaels had an idea, and promptly checked with the shuttle computer for confirmation that it would work.

Instead of having the computer translate for him Sergeant Michaels told the Chief Engineer in Raznits. "Order the computer to translate your statements into American English and my statements into Raznits."

The Chief Engineer, Commander Olo Rinsol, promptly gave the command. He then said. "Who are you and what are you doing in My Engine Room?"

Sergeant Michaels suppressed the desire to tell the Chief Engineer that they were his worst nightmare. Instead he said. "I am Sergeant Robert Michaels of the United States Army and you are my prisoner."

Sergeant Michaels then informed Sergeant Thomas that Engineering was secure. Hearing this, she stepped onto the bridge and ordered the computer to translate her statements from American English into Raznits. The computer informed her that it did not recognize her as someone authorized to issue orders to the computer.

With that she pointed her M-4 at the Lieutenant Commander Soblat's head. Without looking behind her, she instructed Specialist Adcock set his radio to channel two and then hand her his ACH. She then instructed the shuttles computer to monitor channel two and translate anything said on that channel. She also instructed the computer not to translate anything on the other channels unless she or one of the other Sergeants instructed it to translate the conversation. Switching to channel two on her MICH she ran a commo check with the shuttle to verify that the computer had the correct frequency.

Sergeant Thomas then took three steps forward and placed the ACH on the deck. After stepping back to her original position, she motioned Commander Soblat to step forward and pick up the helmet. After a little confusion, he stepped forward and placed it on his head. In his ears he heard someone speaking the same language as the intruders, then someone translated it into Raznits. "Do you understand me now?"

"Yes I understand you. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I am Sergeant First Class Carol Thomas of the United States Army. Who are you?