The 18th Race: Book 02 - In All Directions

by David Sherman

  Once again armed, Mackie faced the front to fight more Dusters, but the only ones he saw were laying on the ground, either still or trying to crawl away from the fight. He turned around to see the Dusters who had gotten past the line of Marines racing deeper into the ruins of the air facility.

  “What are they doing?” Horton yelped. “Where are they going?”

  Mackie could only shake his head. He’d read about battles where a force had broken through a line and didn’t know what to do next, because their commanders hadn’t told them what to do beyond charge and keep going. It seemed that was what was happening here.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he shouted. “Kill them!” He added his fire to the fire of other Marines who were already putting bursts into the backs of the speeding Dusters.

  A couple of hundred meters from the trench, the Dusters started milling about aimlessly in the debris from the original attack on the air facility. When they realized they were being shot at from behind, many of them ducked behind piles of debris, or larger chunks of wreckage.

  “India Company!” Sitter shouted on his all hands, “Up! Get on line. We’re going after them.”

  The Marines who were able climbed out of the trench and got in line, their rifles ready to shoot at any Duster that showed itself.

  Mackie became aware of more cries of, “Corpsman up!” coming from the trench.

  “Watch your dress and stagger it!” the platoon sergeants shouted, the command echoed by the squad leaders.

  “India Company, fast step, move out!” the company commander ordered.

  As one, the able-bodied Marines started at a brisk walk toward the debris the Dusters were covering behind.

  Mackie glanced at his sides to see that Orndoff and Horton were keeping pace, and weren’t directly lined up with him or the Marines on their other sides. He blinked in surprise at what he saw.

  “Hector, what are you doing here? You’re wounded.”

  Cafferata grinned at him. “Doc patched me up and put my arm in a sling. I can still shoot.”

  Mackie shook his head. Cafferata had his rifle stuck through his sling, resting its forestock on his arm. Doc must have given him a pain blocker, he thought, or that would hurt too damn much. He returned his attention to the front, looking for any Duster foolish enough to expose itself. Here and there along the line he heard the sound of a three-round burst as another Marine saw—or thought he saw—a Duster poking its head out. He heard a shriek follow some of the bursts, indicating that not only had a Duster exposed itself, but the burst had hit home.

  Fifty meters from the first debris pile the Dusters had taken cover behind, Captain Sitter gave a new command: “Slow fire bursts, keep their heads down.” At ten meters he gave another: “Flush them out!”

  The Marines sprinted to the piles of debris and bigger chunks of wreckage.

  Mackie and his men dashed to what might have been the corner of a revetment roof, and turned to face it as they ran past. Mackie fired at the three startled Dusters hunkered down behind it. So did his men. The impact of the bullets threw two of the aliens back, blood spurting from sudden holes in their torsos and thighs. Missed, the third whipped around and raised its rifle. Before it could fire, Cafferata put a burst into it and it toppled backward, flinging its rifle up and to the rear as it fell dying.

  More gunfire crackled, and more Dusters shrieked in deadly pain. Deeper cries told of Marines being shot by the aliens.

  Then India Company was beyond the area where the Dusters had taken cover, but they kept going, making sure none had escaped farther.

  “India Company, back to the trench,” Sitter ordered. “Stay alert in case we missed anyone, or anybody’s faking. Fast march. Watch your dress and keep it staggered.”

  “Hey, Mackie,” Sergeant Martin said when they reached the trench, “you’re bleeding.”

  “What? Where?” Mackie looked at his front, turned his arms to examine them. “Where am I bleeding?”

  “On your left side.”

  Mackie raised his left arm and looked. Sure enough, he saw blood staining his side, and a tear near his armpit. He poked the fingers of his right hand inside the tear and flinched when they touched a gouge in the muscle. “No shit. I got hit and didn’t even realize it.” He looked at his squad leader. “You’re bleeding, too. Your leg.”

  “Why the hell did you think I was limping?”

  “Orndoff,” Mackie said. “Hold your arms out and turn around.”

  “Why for?” Orndoff asked, but did as he was told. He didn’t show any blood stains.

  “Horton, you too,” Mackie said, and looked the other way.

  Horton didn’t raise his arms and turn around; he was leaning forward on the lip of the trench. “I think I got hit, too,” he gasped.

  “Corpsman up!” Mackie shouted at the same time Martin did.

  The Butcher’s Bill

  Except for the wounded Dusters who had crawled back to the safety of the trees while they were charging across the half-kilometer of open land in front of the defensive line, the entire attack force had been killed.

  The Marines suffered seven dead, one from first squad. Besides Martin, Mackie, Cafferata, and Horton, six other men from the platoon were wounded.

  Chapter 17

  Camp Puller, Headquarters of NAU Forces, Troy, near Millerton, Office of Commander, NAU Forces, Troy

  Lieutenant General Bauer studied the After Action Reports not only from the division commands, but from the battalion and company commands as well. The various units of VII Corps, both Marine and Army, had acquitted themselves well in combat against the alien enemy. In almost all instances the humans had severely damaged their foes. But their own casualties had mounted, and he had too few support troops that he could feed into the rifle companies to replace the dead or seriously wounded. And he had no knowledge of the number of aliens—or “Dusters” as the troops called them.

  He looked again at the report from India/Three/One. In their latest action they had killed seven or eight hundred Dusters against only seven of their own kia and another eleven wounded.

  But twenty casualties was ten percent of the company’s strength.

  In another action, the second platoon of Alpha, First of the Seventh Mounted Infantry had lost nearly half its strength. And the Construction Battalion detachment that was building their firebase was also severely injured. This against hundreds of Dusters killed.

  How much did that damage the Dusters? Without knowing what the Duster strength was to begin with, he had no way of telling how badly his forces were hurting the enemy. For all he knew, the Dusters had the equivalent of two field armies on Troy—at least eight times as many troops as VII Corps had left Earth with. He reminded himself that not all of VII Corps had made it planetside; huge chunks of it were lost when the Dusters attacked ARG 17 after it exited the wormhole.

  Task Force 8 was limited in the assistance it could provide the planetside forces; it too had been seriously wounded in the attack on ARG 17.

  What could he do? He hoped his message to the Joint Chiefs made it through and that the President and the Secretary of Defense decided to act on it. He knew Marine Commandant Talbot would push to send a relief force, and was pretty sure Chairman Welborn would as well. He desperately needed the additional troops, and the shotguns and artillery canister rounds he’d requested would be extremely valuable in defeating the “human wave” attacks of the Dusters, if the Dusters were dumb enough to continue making them.

  He called for his aide.

  “Sir.” Captain Upshur appeared in Bauer’s office door in seconds.

  “Captain, I want to conference my division commanders immediately. They don’t have to come in, a vid conference will do. Pipe them in to my comp.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Talbot about faced and went to do his commander’s bidding.

  In moments Major Generals Purvis, Noll, and Bearss appeared in windows on his comp’s display.

  “Gentlemen, thank
you for attending me so promptly. I trust the infantry divisions, Marine and Army both, have designated regiment- and brigade-level Whiskey Companies. Start distributing the troops. I want the line companies up as close as possible to full strength quickly, as quickly as possible.

  Let me assure you, I have noted that your people have acquitted themselves in the highest tradition of the NAU military forces. But they are likely to face the enemy Dusters again and again before a relief force arrives.

  With that in mind, I don’t want any more company- or platoon-size outposts. You can use them, but only if they are in locations where they can support each other. My preference at this time is for battalion-size outposts.

  “The Navy is still scanning for Duster concentrations, and looking for gravitational anomalies that could indicate underground spaces the Dusters might be using.

  “Questions?”

  “Sir,” Purvis said. Bauer nodded for him to continue. “I just want to make sure that we should begin pulling our farthest outposts back, tighten up our lines.”

  “That is correct, General.”

  “Sir,” 9th Division’s General Noll said. When Bauer indicated he should speak, he asked, “Have you received a reply yet from Earth on your request for reinforces and additional weapons?”

  “I’m sorry, General, but there hasn’t been enough time for my message to reach Earth and a reply to come back. Rest assured, I will inform you as soon as I receive a reply.

  “If there are no other questions, distribute your Whiskey Company people now.

  Bauer out.” He broke his conference connection. Ass, he thought. He should know that I wouldn’t hold that information back.

  Ten days earlier, The War Room, Supreme Military Headquarters, Bellevue, Sarpy County, Federal Zone, North American Union

  Secretary of War Richmond Hobson sat centered at the end of the wide conference table closest to the door. To his right was Fleet Admiral Ira Welborn, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General John C. Robinson, Army Chief of Staff, sat at Hobson’s left. Arrayed along the sides of the table were sixteen Army Generals, eight to a side. A Marine general, a Navy Admiral, and a civilian were seated at the far end of the table. Other generals and admirals occupied chairs that lined the long walls of the room.

  “As of fifteen minutes ago,” Hobson growled, “we still don’t know how much of Amphibious Ready Group 17 and VII Corps survived the enemy attack, or how far along the survivors are in reaching planetfall on Troy. We can only assume, and you all know what ‘assume’ does, that the Marines have the situation well in hand.

  “You have a question, Mr. Gresser?” he asked when the civilian at the foot of the table cleared his throat.

  “Ah, yes sir,” Ignatz Gresser, the Special Assistant to President Albert Mills, “sort of, sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt—” An imperious spit it out gesture from Hobson made him clear his throat again. “Sir, what does ‘assume’ do, that evidently everybody here but me knows?”

  Hobson laughed, his first genuine laugh since Welborn and the Joint Chiefs’ head of intelligence, Major General Joseph de Castro, brought him word of the alien invasion of Troy. Still laughing, he gestured to Commandant of the Marine Corps Ralph Talbot, who sat next to Gresser.

  “Mr. Gresser,” Talbot said with no trace of condescension in his voice, “of course, you never served in uniform. What we say is, ‘Assume makes an ass of you and me.’ It’s an admonition that making assumptions is rarely a good idea. But in this instance,” he glanced at Hobson for permission to continue and got a keep-going hand-wave in reply, “we lack the intelligence to do anything but make assumptions.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Gresser said.

  “If that’s all the questions for the moment,” Hobson finally said as his laughter died down, “our next assumption is that the aliens will soon send another invasion fleet to counterattack our limited forces on Troy. We must defend our colony, and save our people, both military and—if we can find them—civilian. To that end, Second Army will begin to mount out as soon as units and their equipment can board Navy shipping. Who’s ready to go in the first wave?”

  “Sir,” Commandant Talbot said before anybody else could speak, “Second and 3rd Marine Combat Forces are on two-hour standby and can be on the way to their assigned elevators as soon as orders to move are issued.”

  “Might have known the Marines would jump to the head of the line,” Army Chief of Staff Robinson groused.

  “The Marines are the door-kicker-inners,” Fleet Admiral Welborn said calmly. “The NAU’s force in readiness.”

  The corner of Robinson’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “Which Army units can follow close behind the Marines?” Hobson asked, getting the discussion back on topic.

  “I believe IV Corps is the most ready,” said General George P. Hays, Second Army’s commander, with a nod to Lieutenant General David S. Stanley.

  “Yes, sir,” Stanley said. “Each of my divisions has at least one brigade on twenty-four hour standby. Fifteenth Division is fully on standby. I can have the equivalent of two divisions ready to mount out in two days time. Give me a week, and I believe my entire Corps will be ready.”

  “Very good,” Hobson said. “What about transportation?” He looked at Chief of Naval Operations Fleet Admiral James Madison.

  Madison sighed the sigh of a man being put upon. “As you will recall, Mr. Secretary, much of ARG 17 was killed in the alien ambush en route to Troy. The surviving vessels haven’t yet returned to Earth.”

  “We know that, Madison,” Hobson snapped. “The question is, what do we have?”

  “Well, in Navy shipping, I have enough transports immediately available to transport one MCF.”

  Hobson gave Madison less than two seconds to continue, then said sharply, “What about the civilian shipping you were to commandeer?”

  “That’s not all available yet.”

  “Well, how much of it is available?” The impatience was evident in Hobson’s voice.

  Madison shrugged. “Almost enough to transport an Army corps, but not quite enough for an MCF.”

  “And when will there be more civilian shipping ready for us?”

  “I’m getting it in as fast as I can, Mr. Secretary. But understand, I am short on fighting ships to escort the transports.”

  “Most of Task Force 8 is still in fighting trim,” Hobson said sourly. “Unless you don’t believe the last dispatch?”

  “Do you mean the one in which Avery said, ‘Issue in doubt’?” Madison asked.

  Hobson stared at Madison for a moment before replying. “I’m referring to the message from Lieutenant General Bauer.” To himself he added, I’ve had enough of this baffoon. There will be a new CNO by the time the Navy launches with another MCF for Troy.

  “Oh, yes, the ground commander’s assessment of Navy status in Troy space,” Madison said dismissively.

  Talbot lifted a hand a few inches from the table top.

  “Yes, Commandant?” Hobson said, giving the Marine permission to speak.

  “Admiral,” Talbot addressed Madison, “I have known General Bauer since he was a platoon commander in Lima Three/Four when I was executive officer there. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he knew more about the strength and disposition of the task force supporting his efforts planetside than the admiral commanding the task force.”

  “That’s preposterous!” Madison sputtered.

  “It may be hyperbole, but it’s not too far off the mark,” Hobson said. “While you may disagree with the details, I think we can accept that TF 8 is still in fighting form, and needs reinforcement more than it needs replacing.”

  “Another assumption,” Madison muttered, but softly enough that only those sitting next to him heard.

  Ignoring Madison’s mutter, Hobson said, “This is the problem we always have dealing with interstellar distances. Our most recent intelligence on Troy is nearly two weeks behind. We have no way of knowing
what the true situation is. But we must act on the assumption—I know, there it is again—that our forces on Troy have the situation in hand and can use our help.

  So, Admiral,” addressing Madison again, how soon can the Navy board the Marines and launch to Troy? It seems that everybody is ready except you.”

  “Sir, if I may?” said an admiral seated against the wall behind Madison.

  “I don’t believe everybody here knows you, so state your name, rank, and command first,” Hobson said.

  “Rear Admiral William Moffett, sir. I’m commander, ARG 28. Sir, my ships have already begun moving to the elevator heads in anticipation of boarding the lead elements of Second Army, and can be ready to board them in three days.”

  “Excellent, Admiral!” Hobson said.

  “Sir, by your leave,” another admiral against the wall said.

  “Speak.”

  “Sir, Rear Admiral Herman Stickney, commander Task Force 7. TF 7 is, as the CNO indicated, not yet fully up to snuff. However, it does have three dreadnaughts, three King class carriers, and seven other ships of the line. The lead elements of TF 7 can be in position to escort ARG 28 by the time it is ready to launch.”

  “That’s thirteen warships,” Hobson said. “TF 8 had thirteen warships. How does this make TF 7 less ready to launch than TF 8?”