Read Online Aneka Jansen 6: The Lowest Depths of Shame by Niall Teasdale - Free Book Online

riding armoured transports and waving their laser rifles triumphantly. It was, he thought, a little pathetic.
    He turned and spotted the reporter they had been told about talking to camera with the troops as a backdrop. Whatever the man was saying was inaudible, but Jared was conscious enough of Jenlay media to suspect that he was playing up the effort the Marines had made.
    Continuing his sweep, he spotted a door opening in one of the nearby buildings. A woman with two children clutching at her skirt appeared, smiling as the troops filed past. That , Jared thought, should be what the idiot with the camera should be filming. These were the people they were here to liberate. They deserved to have their story told.
    Still, the position was not secure, even if the Jenlay thought it was. Jared started across the road toward the open door intent on getting them back inside, and that was when the alert flicked through his implant from one of his teammates. He could not see the gunman on the wall, but he knew exactly where he was and where he was aiming. Jared bolted for the door, the woman’s smile turning toward surprise as the dark figure with the rifle bore down on her. She let out a yelp as he pushed her back, and then he grabbed the doorframe, bracing himself a fraction of a second before the grenade smashed into his back, bounced back, and exploded.
    6.5.530 FSC.
    Ella’s eyes flicked open at the touch of Aneka’s fingers. For an instant she had no idea where she was as the nightmare she had been lost in dragged at her mind. Then reality reasserted itself: she was on Shadataga, not Eshebbon, and there were no monsters at the door.
    ‘You okay?’ Aneka asked, concern in her voice.
    ‘Just a nightmare.’
    Aneka nodded. ‘Well… we’ve had reports coming in from the drones for the last couple of hours.’
    ‘Why didn’t you wake me?!’ Ella squeaked, sitting up.
    ‘There wasn’t much point until we knew what was happening. It was pretty much a walk-in. Very few casualties on either side. What there were were almost entirely Herosian.’
    ‘Almost?’
    ‘People get hurt in battles, Ella.’
    ‘Yes… I know. Well, this is good, right? We got Lonar back without too much damage.’
    ‘Yes, this one was easy, and War and Winter say that Marchant has been just about deserted by the Herosians, so that one should be even easier, but Beryum… It was disputed, right? Whoever is holding it seems to have decided to keep holding it.’
    ‘Oh. How long before the fleet gets there?’
    ‘It’s a thirty-nine-day flight.’
    ‘More waiting?’
    Aneka sighed. ‘I’m afraid so.’
    BC-101 Hand of God.
    The last of the Guardian team responsible for the drop into Lonar Starport came into Tasker’s office in a wheelchair. He was a fairly handsome young man, though his looks were marred by the heavy bruising around the left side of his face.
    ‘I wasn’t sure you’d include me in this, Captain,’ Jared said as his chair wheeled him toward her desk.
    ‘Oh? And why is that?’
    ‘Well, you said to come back in one piece and I’m a bit broken.’
    Jared’s medical records passed across Tasker’s vision. Three broken ribs, compound fracture of the left femur, radial fracture of the right humerus… ‘How long before you’re up and about?’
    ‘Techs are saying five days in this chair and another five to ten on a support exoskeleton, but I’ll be fully functional before we get to Beryum.’
    ‘Well,’ Tasker said, placing a small, red cylinder on the desk in front of her, ‘I think you can be forgiven for getting yourself smashed up, seeing as you did save three civilian lives at the risk of your own. That should help with the pain. Class three, difficult to get, but well worth it…’ He was looking embarrassed and she stopped, frowning. ‘Problem?’
    ‘I, uh, I don’t use them, Captain. There was a problem with my port and I couldn’t, and I started noticing the world was actually better without,