13
Unholy Alliance
Arise, or be forever fallen.
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
The first hint of trouble to reach Colonel Suen was the loss of a jeep. It coughed, sputtered, stopped, and started leaking gas. He left a couple of engineers to try to get it running again, and continued upstream toward the dam.
The following day he learned he had serious trouble. This time one of the fuel trucks coughed and sputtered. Then it started burning. Only the supreme skill and speed of his men prevented a much larger disaster. Without a prompt and heroic emergency response, the truck would have blown up and taken at least half the other fuel trucks with it.
The fuel they salvaged from the broken truck was quickly pumped into the other vehicles, and once again, Suen’s battalion moved forward.
The c
