Issue In Doubt

by David Sherman

  “Let’s move it, first fire team!” Martin shouted. “This bird is almost ready to fly away. The squids’ll leave you if you aren’t here when they’re ready to go!” He looked at the prone aliens giving return fire, and ordered, “Second fire team, take him out.” He fired a shot himself at one of the shooters to show who he meant. In seconds, four more bullets struck that one, and he stopped shooting.

  “Now get the other shooters!”

  The lead running aliens reached the Pegasus at the same time as Adriance and Mackie, and one of them barreled into the two of them and their burden, knocking them down.

  Mackie kicked out as he fell, smashing an armored foot into the alien’s backward-bending knee, felling him. The Marine jumped up and stomped on the alien’s helmet, then grasped his rifle with one hand behind the receiver and the other in the middle of the forestock. He saw another alien rushing at him with his weapon pointed like a spear. Mackie pirouetted out of the way of the lunge, and slammed the butt of his rifle at his assailant’s head. But the momentum of his spin carried him around and off balance, so his blow barely staggered the alien. But that slight stagger was enough to allow Adriance to swing his rifle around in a wicked blow that shattered the alien’s facemask.

  With two down at their feet, Mackie and Adriance had a few seconds to take in the entire fight. It was one-on-one, man-to-man close combat—man to alien; they had to be aliens, there was no way a human being could jam into one of their vacuum suits without breaking bones and disjointing limbs.

  No one was shooting in the melee; the combatants faced too much danger of hitting their own if they did. They were all using their weapons as clubs, quarterstaffs, or thrusting spears.

  Just a couple of meters away, Orndoff was being forced backward by an alien jabbing and thrusting at him. Mackie and Adriance both stepped toward the two. Adriance swung the butt of his rifle in a golf club stroke at the alien’s low-slung head while Mackie reversed his weapon and slammed its butt into the alien’s side. Orndoff’s attacker fell away in an uncontrolled tumble, and came to rest twisted in ways that couldn’t be natural for its kind.

  Corporal Button, the third fire team leader, went down clutching his abdomen. The alien who had knocked him down jumped on his helmet, but in the low gravity lacked the force necessary to break anything. Button rolled away but wasn’t able to regain his feet as the alien pursued him with repeated, rapid kicks. Adriance leaped in Button’s direction to help him.

  Mackie shuffled to the aid of second fire team’s PFC Harry Harvey, who was closer and parrying off rapid blows from another alien.

  Orndoff screamed a war cry, heard only by the Marines through their helmet comms. He leaped at the back of one of two aliens attacking Lance Corporal Fernando L. Garcia. He misjudged in the low gravity and sailed over the alien, but managed to slam his rifle’s butt downward onto the alien’s neck, jarring him. The alien whipped his head around to see what had hit him and saw Orndoff, off balance from hitting him, thud onto the regolith and tumble. The alien leaped at the Marine, freeing Garcia to concentrate on his other attacker.

  Orndoff twisted to turn his tumble into a controlled roll, so he was facing up when the alien pounced at him. The alien’s jump was better than Orndoff’s had been, but he still flew high and came down slowly in the low gravity. The Marine had time to twist his body to the side to miss the worst of the alien’s jump, and brace himself to lunge upward with his rifle. The alien already realized that swinging his rifle club-like would throw him off balance; he came down with his rifle pointed straight down, to spear his opponent. He missed Orndoff’s twisting body, but the Marine connected with his target when he lunged up and plunged the muzzle of his rifle into the joint where the elongated helmet met the top plate of the neck armor. The alien’s limbs shot out away from its body, then it jerked its hands to its throat and clutched at Orndoff’s rifle barrel. He crashed onto his side, yanking the rifle out of the Marine’s grip. Orndoff jumped to his feet and tried to retrieve his rifle, but it was jammed too tightly into the alien’s armor.

  Orndoff spun around in a hands-extended crouch, ready to grab or parry any weapon coming at him. The closest alien he saw was the second one attacking Garcia. Garcia had that alien down and was slamming the butt of his rifle repeatedly into his helmet.

  A few meters beyond, Mackie had also lost his rifle. He ducked past a thrust from an alien and grabbed his neck just behind his head. Bracing himself, Mackie twisted, spinning around and flinging the alien’s body off the ground like a whip. Halfway through a twirl, he fell backward, but didn’t release the alien’s neck. The alien thudded to the ground and sprawled limply. Mackie hopped upward and kicked the alien’s head. It flopped at the end of its long neck. He looked around and saw Adriance down with an alien grabbing at his facemask, looking like it was prying it open. Mackie dove at the alien, hitting him full force on his side. The alien bounced along the ground almost like a flat rock skipping across a pond. Mackie raced after it to grab its neck before it could recover, and fling it the same way he’d killed the other one.

  This alien was faster, and was on his feet facing Mackie before the Marine reached him. The two, both without rifles, crashed together. The human was heavier than the alien, and drove him back. The alien flipped, so his head was toward Mackie’s feet. Unable to grab the alien’s neck the way he had the other one, Mackie wrapped his arms around his torso and stood erect, squeezing as tightly as his augmented arm strength could. It wasn’t enough to crush the armor, or even dent it.

  The alien struggled, but his arms were too short to wrap around Mackie’s legs to pull him off his feet. His legs, though, were big and powerful. He kicked them wildly, and threw Mackie off balance. They crashed on their sides to the regolith. The alien slammed his head against Mackie’s legs, and Mackie kicked back at his neck and the underside of his head before letting go and rolling away and bounding up into a crouch.

  The alien was already up and leaping at the Marine. Mackie threw himself backward and thrust out with his feet, catching the alien on the upper part of his chest. The alien’s momentum rolled Mackie into a reverse somersault, and the Marine’s legs were a lever that threw the alien over him and away.

  This time Mackie was on his feet first, and reached the alien in time to grab its upper neck. He jerked upward, lifting the alien off the ground, and slammed him onto the regolith hard enough to make him bounce. He grabbed the alien’s neck with his hands almost half a meter apart, and brought it down sharply across his knee. He thought he felt something break inside the armor. The alien went into uncontrollable spasms. Mackie gave its head an extra kick, and looked around for another alien.

  The fight was ending. Eight Marines and no aliens were standing.

  “Fire team leaders, report!” Sergeant Martin’s voice was hoarse over the comm.

  “I’m here,” Mackie reported. “Adriance?” he asked when his fire team leader didn’t reply. Instantly, he took over. “Orndoff, are you all right?”

  “I’m five by,” Orndoff answered, breathing heavily. “Where’s Adriance?”

  The fire team leaders’ reports took longer than they should have because both Corporals Adriance and Button were down. So was third fire team’s PFC Hermann Kuchneister. PFCs Zion and David Porter were both dead.

  Corpsmen from the Pegasus were checking the wounded before the fire team leaders’ report was finished.

  “All right, Marines, get everybody loaded,” a voice—the pilot? the SAR commander?—ordered. “Leave the aliens, we don’t have room to take any of them. Maybe we can come back later to deal with them.”

  Two minutes later, the Pegasus took off with a short rolling start. The two dead were propped in corners, the wounded laid out on the deck between the benches.

  The Aftermath of the Mini Mouse Missions

  In retrospect, it was a good thing that the squads assigned to security duty for the Pegasuses on the Search and Rescue missions were from different regiments. Three of the four
squads had contact on the ground, and all three of those suffered casualties. India Company’s squad hadn’t suffered the most, nor had it suffered the least. Among them, the four squads lost a total of five Marines, with ten more wounded. Most of the latter were expected to recover and return to duty. That would have been very heavy losses for one platoon; forty percent of its strength.

  All of the aliens who fought the Marines were killed.

  This was the first combat experience for most of the Marines involved, the first time they’d had to kill in order to live, the first time they’d had to deal with buddies getting wounded or killed.

  And they still didn’t have a clue who these aliens were who they’d had to kill, or why those aliens attacked had Troy and the fleet.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fleet CAC, NAUS Durango, in Orbit Around Troy

  With the operation on Mini Mouse underway, Rear Admiral Avery turned his attention back to Amphibious Ready Group 17. The attack was over, all the enemy missiles had been destroyed by the squadrons sent after them, or by fire from the warships—or they’d hit their targets. The wormhole had closed before more than two of the drones he’d sent made it through; all they’d tell Earth was that a missile attack on ARG17 was under way.

  Too many alien missiles had made it through the defenses to their targets.

  A debris cloud marked where the Amphibious Assault Ship Peleliu, ARG 17’s flagship, had been. Likewise the AAS Kandahar and Juno Beach. A single cloud marked the death site of the Landing Platform Shuttle Phillips Head and the Logistics Supply Ship Richmond. Another showed where the Amphibious Landing Ferry Yorktown had been destroyed. The Dry Cargo Ship Columbus was dead.

  The Amphibious Assault Ships Grandar Bay, and Fallujah were wounded, as were the Landing Platform Shuttle Iwo Jima and the Amphibious Landing Dock Saratoga . The DCS Amundsen was wounded.

  Three other ships of ARG17 were dead; only four of the nineteen had made it through without serious injury.

  Task Force 8 had also suffered severely. Four of the five warships Avery had sent to meet and escort ARG17 to Troy from the wormhole were gone. The destroyers Lance Corporal Keith Lopez and Chief Gunners Mate Oscar Schmit Jr. were dead, and both of TF8’s cruisers, the Coral Sea and the Ramsey Strait. Only the fast attack carrier Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd survived, and she was severely damaged. Damaged or not, she was trying to recover those of her Meteors that had survived the fight with the alien missiles.

  Avery spent a long time looking at the results of the enemy attack on the ARG. Fourteen of the nineteen starships in the ARG were troop transports. Six of the fourteen were dead, probably lost with all hands. Five of the others were damaged, with an as yet unknown number of casualties. Only three had come through without significant battle damage or casualties. Three of the five support ships were dead, and one other was wounded.

  Perhaps the worst loss was that of the Peleliu with the ARG’s admiral, and the commanding general of VII Corps and his primary staff.

  Finally Avery said in a formal voice, “Comm, get me commander, Marine Combat Force, Troy.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Davis said softly; he’d been following the aftermath of ARG17’s encounter with the missiles along with the admiral.

  While waiting for the Marine commander, Avery called to his aide, Lieutenant Julius Townsend. “Kindly arrange for my transportation planetside, to Lieutenant General Bauer’s headquarters.” He hesitated, then added, “Tell Chief Jones I want to take the fast way down.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Townsend, understanding why his boss needed to meet with Bauer in person and as soon as possible, put a call in to Chief Boatswain’s Mate Andrew Jones, who ran the admiral’s ship-to-ship, orbit-to-ground shuttles, and told him to be ready to take off on either at a moment’s notice. “The Admiral wants to fly down fastest.”

  “No problem, Lieutenant. My bird will be ready by the time the admiral gets here. Even if he starts right now.”

  “Thanks, Chief.” To Avery: “Chief Jones says he’s ready, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Townsend. Comm, belay that last. Inform Lieutenant General Bauer I am en route to his location and will provide him with an ETA shortly.”

  Near the McKinzie Elevator Base, Outside Millerton, Marine Headquarters

  “Admiral,” Lieutenant General Bauer said, rising and stepping from behind his small field desk. “Come in, please. Have a seat.” He gestured at two camp chairs sitting at a small folding table. A coffee set-up was already on the table.

  “Thank you, sir,” Avery replied. He nervously stepped to one of the camp chairs but didn’t sit; Bauer out-ranked him, and protocol said the senior man sits first. That’s what he told himself.

  “Don’t stand on ceremony, Jim,” Bauer said, smiling. “We’re in the field, not the Flag Club. When a man wearing more stars than you tells you to have a seat, you sit your ass down.”

  “Whatever you say, Harry.” Avery plopped into the chair facing into the room. He fidgeted.

  “Rough ride down?” Bauer asked as he sat in the other camp chair.

  Avery nodded. “‘Fast ride on a rocky road,’ as you Marines call that plunge.” He grimaced, than picked up his coffee mug and took a sip. “I thought I should get down here ASAP.” He shook his head. “The way my arthritic joints feel, maybe I should have ridden the elevator instead of taking the shuttle all the way.”

  Bauer snorted. “Arthritic my ass. There’s a lot of negative things that a Marine can say about the Navy—some of them are even true—but complaints about medical care aren’t among them. If you have arthritis, it’s because you want it.”

  Avery chuckled. “Yeah. Maybe it’s just age getting to me.” He looked into a corner of Bauer’s Spartan office. “Or maybe it’s thinking about our losses.”

  Bauer sucked in a deep breath. “Tell me all about it. Starting with why you thought it important to pay me a personal visit rather than use your comms when you should be in your CAC directing rescue and recover operations on ARG 17.”

  Avery flinched at the mild criticism. “It’s serious, Harry. Damn serious. I don’t want any bad guys who might be listening in to hear me say just how bad things suddenly got.”

  “I can buy that.” Bauer glanced at a random part of the ceiling. “That was quite a light show we were treated to shortly before you announced your impending visit. What the hell happened up there?”

  Avery looked at Bauer, and his expression was bleak. “I lost a third of my fighting power. Ships and men. Gone. Dead.” He shuddered. “But that’s not the worst of it. VII Corps basically no longer exists. ARG 17 got slaughtered, despite the best efforts of my people. We just weren’t prepared for an attack like that.” He shook his head, and shuddered again. “Two of VII Corps’ divisions are gone completely—unless some of the troops managed to get into stasis. If any did, it wasn’t many; there weren’t enough stasis stations on the ships to handle that many people. One of the other two divisions was hurt so badly I don’t think it can function as a division again until it’s withdrawn and reconstituted.” He stopped talking and looked into a place that only he could see.

  “I must be relieved of command, I don’t deserve command,” Avery said so softly the Marine barely heard him, then was silent again.

  After a moment of waiting for him to say more, Bauer asked, “What about the fourth division? What about General Lyman and his staff?”

  Avery shook himself, then spoke more firmly and briskly than he had before. “I believe the 25th Infantry Division lost half a brigade but is otherwise intact.” He paused again, swallowed, and continued in a firm voice.” General Lyman and his staff, unfortunately, were on the Peleliu when she was killed. I don’t believe there were any survivors.”

  Bauer stared at Avery. What he had just described had to be the worst military disaster in centuries.

  He didn’t say that, though. Instead he asked, “Have you sent word back to Earth yet?”

  Avery shook his head. �
��I wanted to make sure you assumed command before I send word.”

  “Jim, if what you said about Lyman being killed is accurate, I’m now the senior officer on or near Troy. Of course I’m in command.” Bauer switched to another topic.

  “I lost some Marines in the rescue mission to Mini Mouse. What is the Navy’s assessment of the lunar operations?”

  Now on firmer ground, not thinking directly about his lost ships and sailors, Avery calmed down. “I’m sorry about your Marines, but the mission was a success on multiple levels. First, they brought back all of my downed fliers. Second, the enemy didn’t use any defensive fire. Did you know I had drones out there to mimic attacking spacecraft, to attract fire? Well, I did, and the enemy didn’t fire on them. The drones over-flew all four sites to assess damage. It didn’t look like anything could have survived in the bombed areas.”

  “Then where did those ground counter-attacks come from?”

  Avery shook his head apologetically. “The drones didn’t see anything that might have been their bases.” He shrugged. “But they weren’t looking for them, either.”

  “Those bases, if they exist, need to be found and neutralized,” Bauer said firmly.

  “Agreed.” Avery bobbed his head, and mentally kicked himself for not ordering a search for ground bases on Mini Mouse before he headed planetside. “I’ll order a search as soon as we are through here.”

  “What is your assessment of the survivability of the people on the starships that were killed?”

  “I’m sure some are still alive, in compartments that weren’t breached. More than that I can’t say at this time. Crews from the uninjured ships are conducting searches. I won’t know until I get their reports. The surviving Meteors off the Kidd are searching the damaged and killed Meteors for surviving pilots.” His shoulders jerked in a half-shrug. “The Meteors’ cockpits are survival capsules. If they didn’t get holed, the pilots can last up to twelve hours before their life support starts to fail.” He looked again into a dark corner of his mind and murmured, “Some of them might still make it back alive.”