Free Fleet #03 No Rest for the Wicked by Michael Chatfield Page A

thought sadly in a haze brought on by fatigue. I miss you buddy, he thought as he took off a troop’s arm, reversed his weapon and buried his blade in the soldier’s torso. Shit. His axe stuck as the trooper fell. Henry backed up and hit the armoured wall of the gun mount.
    Troopers sensing an easy prey slashed at Henry. He took a blow to the leg which burned, telling him it got through, as another attacker stabbed at his arm. He pulled and turned the trooper, drawing the soldier’s blade against his own neck as he got around the armoured shield of the turret. He rested as he saw the mess behind the first liners. All of the commandos were bone tired. They might be able to move easily with the higher gravity, but it didn't mean it didn't tire them out. All of them were exhausted. They had been fighting for hours now. Wounded were being dragged back behind the lines, but there were more of them than people standing. Commandos were taking two or three at a time as they ran to the rear. The enemy reinforcements had almost arrived. They were no more than five meters away.
    “Well sometimes you just have to do something stupid.” He grabbed the turret and depressed the trigger, rounds thudded into the syndicate who were at point blank range. The weapon was one of the PDS systems.
    “How do you like a seventy five calibre Gatling gun?” he yelled as the massive shells punched through the first ranks, exploding to take out the enemy behind them.
    “Pull back Commandos!” he yelled as his HUD alerted him that his people were in position. Using his eyes, he opened a channel.
    “Get em,” he said, sounding every bit exhausted and angry as he felt.
    The corridor where Henry had been fighting was clear up to thirty metres.
    “Breech!” someone said as Henry turned the turret to the other corridor, to see the last commando stumble as her leg was cut. She stabbed her attacker, getting a blade in the shoulder, she pulled the attacker in, head-butting the other soldier and slashing him, taking his blade, as she stabbed another with the first and batted a second away with her new blade. A railgun came up and a short burst announced the end of the Commando who dropped to her knees.
    Blood pooled around her. She’d been a Sarenmenti.
    “No!” Henry yelled. Tears blurred his vision as he clamped down on the trigger, his face remorseless as he kept firing.
    The troops that had recovered from his initial onslaught and were quickly working their way to him. He fired into them as he glanced back to his Commandos.
    “Come on, Commander!” Tully said.
    “You wouldn't be able to get our brothers and sisters out of here then,” Henry said as he pulled the pins that held the Gatling gun. He fired into the mass that were surging over the Commandos that had defended their brothers and sisters with their lives.
    He grabbed hold of four linked boxes as he hit a switch to lower the rate of fire, walking backwards crouched over so he could drag the crates, using the same arm to cradle the monstrous weapon while he depressed the trigger with the other hand.
    Heavy grav is useful for one thing. Henry thought grimly. His mecha's power output was cranked up and the thing that was slowing him down, was also making the recoil feel much less.
    Sweating but twenty metres back from where the two corridors filled with Syndicate troopers, Henry took a knee and braced the Gatling gun as he fired into the converging group which continued toward him.
    “Take that fuckers!” he said as he fired into the oncoming tide. The Gatling gun was a weapon of mass death but the Syndicate just had so many troopers. Using his eyes and pressure balls on his fingers to activate another view screen he looked backwards down the corridor. A group of gunners was waiting to unleash hell, but they were blocked by the casualties and the ones carrying them to safety.
    Henry's gun ran dry as he thumbed two grenades and threw it into the mass just five meters away. It killed