War's Edge- Dead Heroes

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  Rizer received the message, AIR SUPPORT INBOUND ETA 1 MIN. Only about five minutes late!

  But the fight was going their way. Fury had reached the enemy positions on the upper floors, easing the pressure on Doom.

  “Get ready to move, Doom 1 and Doom 4,” said Sgt Cardona from behind the fountain. “We’ll cover you.”

  Rizer and Stiglitz acknowledged. Then shit went south in a hurry. AIR SUPPORT ABORTED.

  What the fuck!

  “Doom, this is Murder 2-7. The gunships were fired upon from your objective!” SSgt Len said. “Get down there, clear it out, or there’s no air support!”

  Dammit!

  The second blow came when two more insurgent air cars appeared over top of the buildings, their white and blue paint reflecting the last light of day. Crossed swords were painted in red on the side of each.

  “We got company!” Farik shouted. “Enemy air assault!”

  “Open up on those ships!” Rizer ordered.

  Long range shots made optimistic targets, but something had to be done when a line fell from each cargo bay, followed by silhouettes of men fast roping to the rooftops. Thick smoke poured from the rear of one of the air cars as it took multiple bolts but held its position. A few of the Marines’ shots knocked inserting troops from the rope, but the majority made the drop. Fury would have a hell of a time securing the buildings now, and Doom would remain bogged down in the courtyard.

  TWO GHOST FIRE TEAMS DISPATCHED TO COURTYARD, came the text from SSgt Len. Rizer assumed Ghost’s other two teams would continue to the objective.

  Whatever, we need all the help we can get!

  Cardona had already lost two Marines in the courtyard. She messaged, RIZER STIGLITZ GO WHEN GHOST ARRIVES.

  The squad arrived moments later, emerging from an alley in the yard’s southwest corner. Rizer and Stiglitz gave the orders as Ghost’s teams sprinted across the courtyard behind Doom Squad’s position. Insurgents sprayed the area with plasma bolts, slugs, and rocket fire. Fragments tore and whirred through the air. One of Stiglitz’s men, another boot, dropped screaming when a rocket exploded and took his leg off at the knee. Cardona sent a man to drag him to cover. The remainder of the two teams charged on, entered the alley at the southern end, and kept going.

  In the lower right quadrant of Rizer’s visor, a live feed from one of the squad’s drones showed the roof of their objective, a five-story warehouse building. Enemy on the roof lashed out with rockets against two circling Dragon gunships, keeping them at bay. Rizer noted they weren’t firing disposable launchers, but rather two reloadable crew-served weapons. The feed suddenly terminated when an insurgent spotted the drone and destroyed it.

  Rizer’s heart pounded in his chest as they made the dash down the street toward the objective, rounds snapping all around them in increasing volume. It’s only a matter of time before your luck runs out.

  The alley ended at a T-intersection, the objective straight ahead. He again checked his HUD for IED warnings, picking up none. Glancing down the righthand alley, Rizer saw two teams from Ghost sprinting to the front doors of the warehouse while taking heavy fire from the windows. “Doom, this Murder 2-7, use your jump packs and secure that roof,” said SSgt Len. “Ghost enters at ground level.”

  Good enough!

  “Copy Murder 2-7, on it.” Rizer replied.

  He turned toward the Marines hunkered by the wall. “Get up there! Come down shooting!”

  The two teams engaged jump pack thrusters and shot upward, arcing over the roof’s edge with all guns blazing. The insurgents were expecting them, and another of Stiglitz’s men fell before he could land, cut down in mid-air. The fire teams had superior firepower, however; their two light machineguns hosed the rooftop in crimson death, which made all the difference. Leone’s bolts cut down a half dozen insurgents in the open and sent eight more scrambling for cover behind roof vents, an air-conditioning unit, their rocket launchers, anything in sight.

  Hopelessly outgunned, they turned one of the launchers on the Marines, getting off only one shot. The rocket exploded five meters in front of Stubs, the concussion blasting him over the parapet. He yelled as he plummeted five stories. Rizer frantically shouted his name while trying to keep up rifle fire.

  Shit! SHIT!

  “Coming back up motherfuckers!” Stubs fired his jump pack during the fall, much to Rizer’s relief.

  Half of the insurgents were dead, but a few stubborn foes remained.

  “Take those fuckin’ Vics out!” Stiglitz commanded the remnants of his team. They ran to flank the massive AC unit, where at least two men hid.

  “Frag out!” Rizer bellowed, pointing to a roof vent where two other insurgents took cover.

  He thumbed the two second timer on the plasma grenade and tossed it. It clanked down and wobbled as it rolled by the vent. One insurgent fired a short burst before bolting for another vent, then flipped mid-air in a bloody, pinwheeling motion when Leone blasted his legs from beneath him. The exploding grenade vaporized the other insurgent in a deafening flash, a red mist hanging in the air for a few moments after.

  LAUNCHERS DOWN REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIR SUPPORT, Rizer messaged.

  He led his team to the air-conditioning unit. The bellowing burp of at least two heavy coil machineguns fired at them from a distance. Slug rounds sparked along the roof, striking various fixtures. Ahead of him Leone fell, half grunting, half yelling. Stubs and Hood continued to the AC unit.

  Rizer knelt over Leone, who gagged, unable to breathe. Her breastplate, pitted deeply in several places, had stopped the high velocity rounds. Might have some broken ribs.

  “Go,” she croaked, jerking her head toward her machinegun.

  More rounds snapped and cracked overhead, one glancing off the very top of Rizer’s helmet, causing him to duck after the fact. With no time to remove the strap from her shoulder, Rizer left the machinegun with her.

  The heavy fire came from four enemy technical vehicles, wheeled civilian work trucks modified with light armor plating and slug-throwing machineguns mounted in their beds. Each painted a different color, some bore faded company logos. The trucks had pulled up on an overpass crossing the southern end of town. Their withering fire tore at the building’s short parapet.

  “All squads, four Vic technicals to the south, approximately sixty meters!” Rizer radioed as he dove for cover. SSgt Len had also noticed them; his call for fire on the tech trucks flashed on Rizer’s HUD.

  AC UNIT ALL CLEAR, Stiglitz messaged.

  “Get a launcher on those trucks!” Rizer said, not content to wait for the Dragons.

  The two teams’ six operational Marines low-crawled to the launcher nearest the overpass. What remained of the building’s parapet covered them from enemy fire when crawling, but they would have to kneel at least in order to work the launcher, an obsolete Union model bearing little resemblance to the Alliance builds Rizer had briefly trained on at SOI.

  “Eight rockets, that’s plenty!” Stubs sounded pleased. He examined the primitive launcher, plainly bewildered, then looked to Rizer. “You figure it out; you’re the brains here!”

  “Thanks a lot, buddy.”

  “Just don’t get your head shot off.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Rizer opened the tube’s breech. “Load us up!”

  As Stubs shoved a rocket into the tube, he tried to decipher the strange prompt icons and Sinonese writing on the targeting computer holo-screen, hoping his helmet would translate but to no avail. Fucking gibberish!

  Rizer slammed the breech closed, pressed a prompt that looked like a rocket, and shouldered the weapon. A grainy image of the trucks appeared on screen as projectiles knifed past him. Manipulating the weapon while trying to keep a low profile, he maneuvered the kill box crosshairs onto the third truck, then looked for the fire prompt. After tapping several icons to no avail, he noticed the small red button beneath the targeting screen and pressed it. The rocket shot forth;
the intense heat of its fiery exhaust blazed through his armor.

  By the time he fired, the vehicle had driven out of the crosshairs. The rocket flew harmlessly between trucks three and four.

  “Another!” Rizer shouted.

  Stubs jammed one in the tube and closed the breech.

  “Hit something this time!” Stiglitz shouted, though he offered no assistance.

  Here we go! Rizer got the truck in the crosshairs and kept it there as he fired. The vehicle exploded in a mushroom of flames and dirty black smoke. An insurgent gunner, blown from the bed, flew over the side of the elevated road, his flaming body dropping like a falling star.

  “Another!”

  The remaining tech vehicles increased their fire to counter the launcher, blasting bricks and concrete chunks from the parapet. A slug round ricocheted off the launcher and streaked past his visor, barely missing. Hood took a round that glanced off his shoulder armor.

  Come on, come on! He tried to sight in on another truck, but they were moving now, and harder to track under the hail of fire.

  “Murder call-signs, this is Gunslinger 1-4, we have your positions identified, and we’re coming in hot from the northwest,” a pilot said coolly.

  Finally!

  Two Dragon gunships appeared over the rooftops behind the Marines, unleashing a salvo of missiles on the tech vehicles. The two leading trucks exploded in showers of sparks and flames. The Dragons roared over the complex, engines whining and exhausts blasting, their rotary plasma guns erupting in volcanic burps of fire on the last truck, which ceased return fire when the fuel tank burst into flames.

  “Murder, this is Gunslinger, all targets destroyed. We are moving on. Enjoy the rest of your night. Gunslinger 1-4 Out.”

  “Copy, Gunslinger 1-4; thanks for the help,” Sgt Cardona replied.

  “All Murder 2 elements, this is Murder 2-7, we are pulling out!” said Len. “Assemble at disabled vehicles. Murder 2-7, out.”

  “You heard the man; let’s go!” Rizer said. “Stubs, get Leone!”

  “On it!”

  Rizer grabbed one of Stiglitz’s dead men, the name stenciled on his armor not registering. He saw only his pale face, which appeared frozen in a last gasp of frantic fear. He slung the lost man over his shoulder before exiting the roof in the same manner they’d arrived.

  Their Scorpion IFVs awaited at the disabled vehicles, the area now secure. The engineers had gotten the dump truck fixed, but they couldn’t save the tank, which was being hooked up to a tank recovery vehicle. No saving this town either. In the distance, two more Dragons joined the aerial assault, the gunships taking turns lighting up the southern end of Pax. Burning buildings lit the town to nearly midday brilliance as the Marines loaded up.

  Rizer shook his head at the irony. Pax would be mostly a memory in a few minutes, at the cost of several Marines who might have lived had their calls for artillery been granted. It wouldn’t have mattered—the toll in collateral damage was the same. Ah, but the rules of engagement, can’t forget those. The dead Marines would certainly forget, while Rizer and Doom would continue to live by them. More like die by them. But I don’t make the rules.

  Those who did—the brass, all the way down to regimental level—needed to change them, and fast. Rizer didn’t need to sit in meetings and examine troop movements to recognize the fight for Verdant was growing more vicious by the day, if not by the hour.

  CHAPTER 22

  General Hella flew to Camp Shaw early in the morning, up from his field headquarters outside of Kataro, Verdant’s capital city. Major Generals Brox and Hoffman accompanied him, along with Sergeant Major Wilson of the 42nd Division and Rear Admiral Turner. It was not an impromptu visit; nevertheless, he hadn’t alerted the commanders on base in advance. He rarely did, for this gave them time to prepare a dog-and-pony show for his benefit, as well as their own, the last thing he wanted. Hella preferred to catch his units going about their business as usual in order to truly gauge their combat preparedness and current states of morale and discipline.

  Hella and his entourage created a stir that quickly drew the attention of the infantry battalion COs, who came to greet the brass and offer to show him around. “I’ll not hear of it, colonel,” he told Lieutenant Colonel Chord, CO of 123rd Battalion, the first commander to accost him. “Go about your business; I’ll be in the area. Pass the word to your Marines.”

  “Aye aye, sir. If there’s anything I can—”

  “So happens there is. I’ll need a meeting room for an intel brief at thirteen-hundred hours; is yours available?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. Be there. And bring your S-2 officer.” After Chord marched away to make the arrangements, Hella said to MSgt Rocco, “Inform the COs of 9th and 41st battalions of the meeting and tell them to bring their intel officers. I’d also like Brigadier General Knight there if he’s on post.” Knight commanded Third’s Service and Support Group.

  “Aye, sir.”

  After touring all the pertinent venues—armories, motor pools, a few of the barracks—Hella visited the three battalion aid stations. Hella, Brox, and Wilson spent over two hours thanking the medical staff, pinning on Purple Hearts, and talking to Marines who lay in various states of injury. Keeping up an optimistic, motivating countenance during the tour didn’t cause him pain equal to that of his casualties, though it certainly felt miserable. He came close to cracking only once, when pinning a medal on a sergeant who had lost both legs and suffered third degree burns over the rest of his body, his face barely passable as human. Thank God he’s asleep.

  For the first time in his long career, Hella harbored doubts as to whether he could have addressed a man so gravely injured. He could accept Marines falling victim to disfigurement when fighting a proper war, backed by all the resources of the Alliance, but he knew this wasn’t the case. The Alliance let you down, son. Another thought struck him: What might have been done to prevent this? How can I win this war with the paltry amount of men allowed me?

  He had no answers yet plenty of ideas. For the council to shoot down.

  After eating noon chow with a table full of low-ranking enlisted men, Hella and his companions made their way to 123rd Battalion HQ and got settled in the meeting room. Time on deck: 1245.

  As his last act of pre-meeting preparation, Hella opened a personal memo on his data pad, received earlier that morning from the commandant. He didn’t expect good news and had put off reading it until now. Tell me something good, Storek.

  Hella:

  I regret to inform you that your request for additional forces—two battalions to be added to 42nd Div and one to 79th Div—has been denied by GA Deely and the Joint Defense Council. While the Navy and Alliance Intelligence Services commend the rapid seizure by your Marines of the recent air-drop of supplies by suspected Union operatives, they cannot authorize additional forces to the Verdant theater without evidence of direct Union involvement in the insurgency. That you have seized Union weapons and surplus equipment from the insurgents proves nothing, so far as they are concerned, since these items are readily available from black-market arms dealers.

  Even with acceptable proof of direct Union involvement, your request might still have been denied. The Union and the Planetary Federation have threatened to close vital jump points if we violate the Frontier Deployment Pact. And as I’m sure you are aware, the recent round of budget cuts has forced us to downsize the Corps. The extemporaneous deployment to Verdant, as well as key deployments in other systems, has severely impacted force strength and readiness.

  Bottom line: I can’t grant you additional forces unless you give me something more tangible to present to the council.

  My present focus is on changing the rules of engagement to give our staff and officers in the field more leeway to take the initiative. It’s the best I can do at the moment—unfortunately, past administrations literally wrote us into a corner with their damned treaties, all as worthless as th
e vellum they’re scrawled on. I’ll keep doing what I can. Keep me posted on your progress and give Kyle my regards. Contact me the instant your men capture the first bona-fide Union operative—then we’ll see if the council will let us take off the gloves and fight on our terms.

  Good luck, old friend,

  Storek

  Hella erased the eyes-only memo, then glanced at the official denial letter from Headquarters Marine Corps attached below, which would go into his file.

  “I take it the news isn’t encouraging, sir,” said Brox. He had served under Hella long enough to see through his mask of perpetual composure.

  “It’s what I expected.” He didn’t mention the note about changing the rules of engagement, for it wasn’t in the official memo, and he kept in trust his personal correspondence with the commandant. I can’t do a damn thing with the council, but I can damn sure shake things up here. He checked the time again: 1252. “Bring them in, master sergeant.”

  Rocco beckoned the waiting officers into the meeting room: three battalion COs, all lieutenant colonels and their S-2 officers, two captains, and a first lieutenant. Brigadier General Knight, presently in the field, was excused from the meeting.

  “At ease, gentlemen; be seated.” Hella commended the battalion commanders on the combat readiness of their units, for he’d found few discrepancies. “That’s what I need to see. You and your men are literally the glue holding this operation together, and I need you to keep your Marines motivated and focused on the mission. I wish I could say that your units are going to be relieved sometime soon. I cannot. Despite the efforts of myself and General Storek, my request to add three battalions has been denied by the Joint Defense Council.”

  Expressions neutral, all the men kept their bearing. They knew it was coming as well as I did.