Shelby 5 Snippet 6

 Oops, forgot to post this yesterday. My bad.

  So, sitrep: I am half way through Shelby 6. I just sent the first half off to Paul and Wayne this morning. If any other Betas want in, please email me.

  In other news, both my Mom and Gram have Covid. I'm a bit worried about Gram, she's 90. But she did get the booster and mom said that they are both doing better. Gram is probably not happy at missing out on Bingo and her card games! lol

I am trying to get certain other family members to get vaccinated. No progress on that front. Sigh.

On to the snippet, and then lunch! I'm hungry!

Chapter 5

 

TauG9-77

General Sedu stared bleakly at the reports scattered on his desk. He was still dealing with the aftermath of the nuclear strike on the spaceport. To say that things were a mess was putting it mildly.

The Marines and their partisans had opened up a full-court press on every base he had during or shortly after the nuke went off. Without air support to move personnel around and without gunships and drones to fly cover, some of his bases had been lost.

The navy had saved his butt more than once. He knew that and couldn't help but resent it a little even though he knew such feelings were stupid and he should be grateful. It just burned to have his chestnuts pulled out of the fire over and over again.

He had been forced to fall back to three of the cities and set up a tight perimeter there. Each of them had a spaceport though he was limited on using aircraft. He had a few drones and aircraft left, those that had been out on missions at the time the nuke went off. But he'd lost his entire air mechanic team and supports. The few Taurens that had been pressed in to help support the remaining aircraft complained constantly about the dwindling amount of parts and supplies left. Even specialized tools were an issue.

He was looking at a near total loss of his air power if he didn't allow them to ground the remaining aircraft for a fleet overhaul. His people had been “requisitioning” civilian craft but there were few left.

He closed his eyes in pain. And it didn't help that once the enemy knew what he was doing they'd booby trapped three of the craft. He'd lost a mechanic and air crew on one of those bombings.

The civilians on the planet didn't have many aircraft left at this point. They'd only just started to get aircraft from the Federation when he had arrived.

He knew his career was most likely toast. He hated it, but he was more or less resigned to it at this point. Only a stubborn refusal to give up kept him going at this point.

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Colonel Los winced when pain made his left arm go numb. He flexed his hand, trying to get feeling back into it. There wasn't much there. His right arm was cradled against his abdomen, still in a cast.

He had survived the second air crash, but he had been critically injured. He had been placed into stasis for the return journey to home for surgeries and a long recovery. But the needs of the service had forced him and other injured out of their much-needed rest.

He had endured rounds of surgery and physical therapy to get to this point. He still had headaches and felt like an invalid. His legs were better; he could almost support his own weight on them without the crutches. He still needed the braces and exoframe though.

The therapist quietly helped him move his arm and massaged the muscles in his bicep and triceps. She put an ice pack on his shoulder, strapped it there and then made a note on his chart.

He grunted and turned away and back to the paperwork on the tablet in front of him. His left eye was closed. The bones around it had been broken, and a shard had blinded him there. They'd managed to rebuild it, but if he kept it open for long periods of time, he got shards of pain, especially if he was in bright sunlight.

He had taken on paperwork and reading post battle reports, intelligence, anything to try to turn the tide. He felt intensely bitter over everything he read though and helpless. Like the general though, he refused to quit or give in. There had to be a way to break the bastards. They just hadn't found it yet.

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