Issue In Doubt

by David Sherman

  He looked over his men, seeming to look each of the one hundred and twenty-five of them in the eye, and stepped off the stage.

  “Troop, a-ten-shun!” troop First Sergeant Powhatan Beaty shouted as Meyer marched out of the classroom, followed by the other officers. When the captain was gone, he said, “Platoon sergeants, when I dismiss you take your men to their quarters and take care of last minute preparations. There will be an inspection in two hours. We will board transportation for the first leg of our trip to Kenya in the morning. Dismissed!”

  Barracks, India/3/1, MCB Camp Pendleton, California, NAU

  “First squad, on me,” Sergeant Martin called when third platoon reached its squadbay. The Marines who had already entered their rooms came back out to the corridor and gathered with the others in front of their squad leaders. Elsewhere along the corridor, third platoon’s other squad leader were gathering their men as well.

  “Listen up, and listen carefully,” Martin said seriously. “You saw the Force Recon vids. An important question that wasn’t answered was, how did the aliens spot those Marines? The camouflage of our utilities makes us damn hard to see in the field. You’ve seen Force Recon in action. Their utes are even harder to spot. Maybe the aliens see in a different part of the spectrum, or maybe they have some other sense that makes them less reliant on their eyes. I hope we find some way of knowing before we make planetfall, because right now we can’t rely on our cammies to be invisible to the aliens. Keep that in mind when you’re going for cover and concealment—they might still be able to see you.

  “Now get into your rooms and finish getting your shit together. I’m going to inspect in half an hour, and I want everything ready to go the minute we get the word to move out. Go.”

  Back in their room, first squad’s first fire team didn’t start getting ready for the inspection. Instead, Corporal Adriance and Lance Corporal Mackie dropped into the chairs at their tiny desks and stared wide-eyed at each other. PFCs Orndoff and Zion collapsed on their racks and turned their faces to the wall.

  “This is real,” Mackie whispered, half to himself.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Adriance whispered back. When he noticed that Mackie was trembling, he realized that he was trembling himself, and that the trembling was in danger of overwhelming him. He straightened up and took a deep breath. He looked at his dress blues tunic and saw the Combat Action Ribbon on its right breast, and the two campaign medals and Marine Expeditionary Medal that followed the Good Conduct Medal on the left breast. He didn’t have to look at the tunics of his men to know that none of them had the CAR or any campaign medals. He’d been there before, they hadn’t. It was up to him to set the example, to keep his men from falling apart before they’d even heard a shot fired in anger.

  “Listen up,” he snapped. “We’re Marines, this is what we signed up for. When you walked into that recruiting office and signed up, you knew that some day you might have to fight a war, might have to kill—or even be wounded or killed yourself.

  “Well, we’re Marines. We have a long history behind us, Marine ancestors who were always the toughest, most winning warriors of their times. And we’re the toughest, most winning warriors of our time. We aren’t going out there to get wounded or killed. We’re going out there to put a serious hurting on whoever or whatever it was that slaughtered the people on Troy.” He carefully didn’t mention what happened to the Force Recon Marines.

  “We’re Marines. We fight. And when we fight, we win. So stop pissing and moaning about what’s coming up, and start thinking about how we’re going to kick some alien ass!”

  “What about what happened to Force Recon?” Zion asked.

  “What about it?” Adriance asked back. “Force Recon went in expecting to snoop and poop and gather intelligence. They weren’t prepared to fight. We’ll go in expecting to kick ass. Now we’ve got an inspection to prepare for. Get busy!”

  Not only did the squad pass Martin’s inspection, the whole platoon passed Second Lieutenant Commiskey’s inspection which followed minutes later, and Captain Sitter’s inspection. Everything they weren’t taking, which included their dress blues and most of their personal belongings, went into the company supply room for storage during their absence. Then it was time to fall in behind the barracks and head for the dining facility for evening chow.

  The next morning the First Marine Regiment boarded C215 transport aircraft from VMGR 352, Marine Air Group 11, and flew to the space elevator base near Quito, Ecuador, Pacific America.

  Transit to Semi-Autonomous World Troy

  Even with four elevators operating round the clock, it took time to ferry the twenty-two and a half thousand Marines of the 1st Marine Division the nearly 36,000 kilometers to the geosync station where they boarded Navy shipping. It was a full week before the entire division was boarded and the Amphibious Ready Group in formation to head for the wormhole that would take the Marines to Troy. As soon as the ARG moved off, the 2nd Marine Air Wing, with its aircraft, munitions, fuel supplies, parts, and the rest of its impedimenta began rotating onto the elevators to mate with their waiting flotilla.

  From orbit, it took three days at flank speed to reach the wormhole through which they would travel the sixty-two light years to their destination. The sixty-two light years was the quickest part of the journey.

  The gator task force was preceded into the wormhole by Task Force 8, built around the carrier NAUS Rear Admiral Norman Scott. The five destroyers went in first, followed closely by two cruisers, the battleship that was the flagship, and the fast attack carrier. The TF’s three frigates tailgated the Scott. Both carriers launched their spacecraft squadrons as soon as they exited the wormhole in Troy’s space. The twelve warships pinged Troy-space, searching for other spacecraft, but found nothing other than planets, moons, asteroids, and miscellaneous space junk, certainly nothing that remotely resembled spacecraft. Rear Admiral Avery ordered a drone dispatched to the ARG, which then flowed through the wormhole.

  ARG17, fifteen gator ships—”gator,” an archaic term from when humanity was only on one world, and Marines were landed from water seas to land—centered around Landing Platform Shuttle-1 NAUS Iwo Jima. LPS-1 was the fifth ship to carry that name. The 1st Marine Regiment was embarked on her. Traveling at three-quarter speed, it took five days for the ARG to take station off Troy and prepare to land the landing force. While the gator ships were moving into position, the warships of TF-8 took defensive positions around the planet, covering all approaches, and guarding against ground-based attacks.

  Chapter Eight

  Land the Landing Force, Semi-Autonomous World Troy

  “All right, Marines, line it up!” Staff Sergeant Guillen roared.

  “Get out there and get in line!” the squad leaders shouted.

  “Move, move, move!” the fire team leaders cried.

  There was a pounding of boots on the deck and a clatter of loose gear jerking about. Here an “Oof.” There a grunt. Elsewhere a curse as the Marines of third platoon scrambled out of the squad compartments in which they’d billeted for the trip. They scrambled into a double line in the passageway, one line on each side, jostling one another in their haste, and trying not to bump into their squad leaders or the platoon sergeant.

  “Squad leaders, report!” Guillen ordered as the thirty-nine Marines settled into position.

  “Fire team leaders, report!” the squad leaders echoed.

  “First fire team, all present and accounted for!”

  “Second fire team, all present and accounted for!”

  “Third fire team, all present and accounted for!” came the replies, one of each for each of the three squads.

  “First squad, all present and accounted for!” And the same for second and third squads.

  Guillen clasped his hands behind his back and strode the length of the platoon, looking at each Marine as he passed, his experienced eye looking to make certain every man had everything he needed to carry for the landing. None failed his inspe
ction—all possible failures had already been dealt with by the squad leaders inside the compartments before they fell out.

  “You know the drill,” Guillen said when he reached the far end of the platoon. “As many times as we’ve done this, you damn well better know it.” He looked past the platoon to where Second Lieutenant Commiskey stood just beyond the end of the formation.

  “Sir, third platoon is all present and accounted for, and ready to move out.”

  “Thank you, Staff Sergeant,” the platoon commander replied. “You may take the platoon to its boarding point.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Third platoon, face aft!”

  The Marines pivoted, those on one side of the passageway facing to their right, those on the other to their left.

  “Third platoon, route step, march!”

  They moved out, not marching in step, turning this way and that as they wended their way through the passageways, up ladders and down, until they linked up with the rest of India Company at a closed hatch outside the hanger deck. Elsewhere on the Iwo Jima other platoons and companies were assembling at equally closed hatches leading to the hanger deck until all of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines was ready. First and second battalions followed in trace.

  A clanging from the other side of the hatches announced bosons mates undogging them. In a moment the hatches were flung open, and the Marines surged through, urged on by the “Move move move!” of platoon sergeants and squad leaders.

  “Follow the yellow lines!” the bosons mates shouted at the Marines racing past them. As if the Marines needed the reminder—they’d rehearsed going through the hanger deck to their assigned shuttles so many times during the past five days they could have found their way in their sleep. Or so many of them claimed. Nonetheless, “Follow the yellow lines!” the bosons mates shouted again and again. They had to keep shouting the instruction—sailors think Marines are dumb. Hey, you aren’t going to catch squid-boy landing on a hostile planet where he can get his sweet ass shot off. Nossiree!

  “Now what do we do?” PFC Zion groused a couple of minutes after third platoon crammed itself into a shuttle.

  “Now we wait for what comes next,” Corporal Adriance said.

  Lance Corporal Mackie didn’t say anything, just squinched his shoulders, trying to make himself as comfortable as he could, jammed shoulder to shoulder against Adriance and Zion, with his pack pressed against his back, the items on his combat-loaded belt poking into his hips and thighs and midriff.

  It was long minutes of uncomfortable waiting before they heard faintly through the armor of the shuttle, “Land the landing force!”

  Rumbles announced the suctioning of the atmosphere from the hangar deck, followed by the opening of the bay doors. More rumbles and jerks told of tractors moving the shuttles to the launch ramp. With a final shove, the shuttles lost the gravity generated within the starship, and they began drifting away to a distance where it was safe to light their engines. Minutes later, more than fifty shuttles were in formation and began the plunge planetward.

  Inside the windowless shuttles the Marines couldn’t see the flashes of the barrage the destroyers of TF-8 were laying on the landing zone, nor could they see the atmospheric aircraft off the carrier Admiral Scott orbiting to begin their strafing runs when the barrage stopped.

  Planetfall, Semi-Autonomous World Troy

  The shuttles touched down at hundred and fifty meter intervals five klicks from Millerton. Not all of them touched the ground; some hovered two or three meters above the scrub-covered dirt. The Marines scrambled off, some running straight from the ramps, others having to jump a meter or two from the ramp’s lip to the ground. They raced a hundred meters from the shuttles, spreading out and getting on line in squads and platoons and companies. Fifteen seconds after touching down, the shuttles launched, jumping straight up on the downward-facing jets on their undersides. Their combined roars would have burst the eardrums of the Marines, had they not been wearing full-head helmets insulated to block exterior sounds. Still, some noise got through, momentarily deafening the Marines. At five hundred meters altitude the shuttles angled their noses upward and fired their main engines, shooting up into the atmosphere and back to orbit.

  By then, more than three thousand Marines were on the ground, in prone shooting positions, scanning the surrounding landscape, ready to repel an assault. In addition to their personal weapons, one fire team leader in each squad used a motion detector, one used an infrared scanner, and the third had a sniffer checking for chemical signs of animal life wafting on the breeze. The Marines watched through the spotty fires set off by the shuttles’ jets.

  “Ears!” the command came down from Regiment to the battalions when the shuttles’ roar was sufficiently muted by distance.

  “Ears!” the command went from battalions to companies.

  “Ears!” the command went from companies to each Marine on the defensive line.

  “Turn on your ears,” Sergeant Martin ordered first squad.

  “Unplug your ears,” Corporal Adriance told his men.

  Now they listened, as well as watching with their eyes and their detectors. At first all they heard was the faint crackling of the fires that were quickly dying down, the minor noises made by the Marines to their sides, and the buzzing of flying insectoids. After a few moments, the cries of avians picked up, as did the rustling of small animals skittering through the scrub.

  The Marines waited and watched for an hour and then some, while regimental and battalion headquarters launched a dozen and a half Unmanned Aerial Vehicles disguised as local flying animals to circle in ever-widening orbits, seeking enemy positions or movement. Three of the UAVs went directly to Millerton, where two made swooping orbits and the other perched on one of the pylons anchoring the space elevator.

  All any of the UAVs saw was a landscape or cityscape devoid of animate life.

  1st Marines HQ, Five Klicks West of Millerton

  Colonel Justice M. Chambers, the commanding officer of the 1st Marines, listened to the report of Major Reginald R. Myers, the regiment’s S2, intelligence officer, regarding the total lack of human or vaguely humanoid forms seen anywhere within a ten kilometer radius of the landing zone. Chambers comm-linked with his battalion commanders.

  “First battalion, I want you to secure this landing zone until the next wave lands. Once a battalion of the Fifth Marines is here to relieve you, move forward to positions west of Millerton. Second battalion, secure the space elevator to prepare a landing field for the airedales. 3rd Battalion, have two companies sweep through the city to make sure nobody’s home, and have one company send platoon-size patrols ten klicks beyond the city. Headquarters Company, move to the elevator and set up in its buildings.

  “Questions?”

  There were no questions, all the battalion commanders understood the commander’s intent. And they all knew that “airedale” was the derogatory term ground-combat Marines used for Marine air units and their personnel.

  On the Move, South of Millerton

  “Third platoon, saddle up!” Staff Sergeant Guillen shouted. “We’re moving out.”

  “Ah, just when we were getting settled in,” Lance Corporal Mackie quipped.

  “That’s Mother Corps for you, Mackie,” Corporal Adriance said. “As soon as you relax, she’s got work for you to do.” Then to Sergeant Martin, “Where we going, honcho?”

  “You know as much as I do,” the squad leader replied. “Is everybody up and ready?” He looked along the line of his squad and, by focusing hard, was able to make out that everyone was on his feet. It was a long time since he’d last been discomfited by how hard it was to see Marines in their cammies. He turned to look where he thought the platoon’s command group stood and waited for the next order.

  “Squads in line,” came the order from Second Lieutenant Commiskey. “First squad on the left, second in the middle, third on the right. First squad link with Kilo Company on your left, third squad link second platoon with on your right. Wa
it for my signal.”

  “First fire team, me, second, third,” Martin gave his squad their marching order. The Marines quickly got in order.

  “Orndoff, me, Mackie, Zion,” Adriance told his men. “Zion, make sure you don’t lose Sergeant Martin.”

  “As if,” PFC Zion snorted. “I don’t think it’s possible for the honcho to lose touch with the man in front of him even if that man’s trying to break contact.”

  “I heard that, Zion,” Martin said. “And you better believe it.”

  A moment later the command to move out came down. 3rd Battalion, which had been on the right side of the regiment’s defensive line, hardly had to veer to go past the right side of the area where isolated flames still licked. They skirted the south side of the small city, where the houses and other buildings petered out and gave way to fields and thin woods. India Company, on the left of the battalion formation, filtered through the structures.

  On the Southern Outskirts of Millerton

  “India Company, check inside the buildings,” Lieutenant Colonel Ray Davis, the battalion commander, ordered. “I don’t want anybody popping up behind us. Kilo, Lima, slow your pace so India doesn’t fall behind.”

  India Company’s first and second platoons encountered and quickly searched structures before third platoon finally did.

  “First fire team, check it out,” Martin ordered as first squad approached a two story, white-painted clapboard house with gabled roof and a porch that wrapped around the near side of the building.