Kovanian was struggling to keep his fire disciplined. I switched to his personal channel.
“Hey, Marine. Take a breath. They’re doing you a favor by exposing themselves like that. Sight on the flash of the fire, then wait until they rise up to move. Then nail ’em. Just like on the range.”
“Aye, corp,” he stammered. He sounded shaky, but his aim did improve and he stopped burning up ammo.
After an eternity, the promised fire mission arrived. Terry and his new team moved back toward our defensive line near the landing site. “How you doin’?” I asked over his frequency.
“I got one hit bad,” he said, his voice almost breaking. “He got up on one knee and started blazing away when they charged. I told him to keep his head down but he didn’t listen.”
I knew what he felt. The Marine was new, green, and got himself shot, but he was a brother, and Terry was in command, so he felt like it was his fault. “Nothing you could’ve done,” I told him. “Worry about the Marines you still got left. I’m gonna need cover in a minute.”
“You got it, Mick.”
I felt bad. Terry was a veteran, but he’d never been in command before. I wondered which one got hit. I didn’t know any of their faces, they were new boots in a different platoon. I felt bad about that.
Soon, the mortar fire crashed down to my immediate front. The shells sent fragments and shattered stone shards tearing through the enemy, halting their advance for the moment.
“Move it out!”
Johnson, Kovanian and I raced up the trail. We turned as we passed O’Rourke and his two riflemen, taking up position to cover Sabatini’s team. We were well behind Ski and Hernandez now. If the pirates followed us, they’d catch it from both flanks.
The barrage shifted to Sabatini’s front. Li and Khan ran to us, then Bauer. She held the rear for her Marines. As Bauer crossed the empty space, he suddenly lurched and fell.
“Shit!” I cried. “Covering fire!”
Li was already halfway to his teammate. Khan hesitated for a second, then followed. Somehow they made it through the enemy fire and got to the big TAR gunner. Sabatini turned her attention to her team.
Away from her front.
I saw it unfold in slow motion. A pirate, his FN assault rifle at the ready, appeared around the pillar which sheltered her. As his weapon came to bear, I pointed my ACR by instinct, training and every ounce of hope I had, pumping the trigger.
He jerked and staggered as my rounds punched holes in him. I fired until he fell, then gave him another for insurance. “Behind you, goddamit!” I roared.
She pulled a grenade from her belt, hit the fuse and tossed it around the column. As it went off, she started toward us.
Li and Khan had Bauer by the shoulders straps, dragging him toward us. He was a large man, and they were both fairly small, so they were struggling. I wanted to run to them and help carry, but it was more important for the rest of us to suppress the enemy.
It wasn’t enough. Twenty meters from safety, a machine gun burst swept all three Marines. I saw the incoming rounds tear into them and felt horror close its fingers on my heart. All three fell into the dust.
“You bastards!” I howled, firing into the enemy as they rushed toward my fallen brothers. The pirates were oblivious to the artillery now.
“Charge!” I leapt to my feet, sprinting toward the three Marines.
“This is supposed to be a withdrawal,” cried Kovanian.
“Nobody gets left behind!” I screamed, firing as I ran. “MAH-REEEN CORPS!”
Johnson was a half-step behind me, his TAR sweeping the enemy like a scythe.
Kovanian followed as O’Rourke and his team covered our advance.
I didn’t expect to live. It wasn’t a well conceived plan. We were probably rescuing corpses. But I knew I would sooner die than leave Marines to the enemy.
Somehow, nothing hit me. I ran with my rifle tucked into my shoulder, snapping off shots at shadows of enemy who appeared from the swirling dust and fell away as I shot them. I was Death. I ran through the fire of hell unscathed, dealing destruction. I reached the fallen just as the enemy did. I shot one man at a range of less than a meter. Another confronted me, but I got my weapon in line first. He froze as he waited to die. He knew he was done. I pulled the trigger.
Click.
We both stopped, stunned. I was empty.
Chapter 36
17 JAN 2076
GANYMEDE
The pirate whipped his rifle up. I acted on impulse. I lunged at him, delivering a vicious Southie bar-room headbutt and knocking his rifle aside with my own as he fired. The flash was blinding and even in the thin atmosphere I heard the crack as the bullet sped past. As I was a few convenient centimeters shorter than my opponent, the forehead of my helmet slammed into his facemask and sent him reeling back. With my weapon still empty, I reached over my shoulder and whipped out my machete. As he regained his balance and tried to bring his rifle to bear, I hacked at him, burying my blade in the angle between his neck and shoulder. The spray of blood on my mask hid him from me.
I wiped the freezing blood from my visor with my sleeve. Another pirate was five meters away, leveling a rifle.
I lunged at him, swinging my machete for all I was worth. He was too far away. No chance I’d get to him before he fired. Maybe I would hit him even after he shot me. That’s not a bad way for a Marine to die.
I wondered why he didn’t fire. As my blade bit, I saw. He was already falling. Sabatini, coming in from the left and ahead put a burst through his body as he drew a bead on me.
As I was expecting resistance, when I hit him we both went down. I sprang back up to my knees, but saw no enemy close by. Johnson was ahead of me, feet apart and TAR on his hip like John Wayne, firing tight bursts from his weapon at the oncoming foe. Sabatini and Kovanian were lifting fallen Marines.
I let my empty rifle hang by its sling, the take-up reel pulling it onto my back. I heaved Li over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry and began the race toward our lines, expecting a bullet in the back every second.
Somehow, we got to the defensive line. The crossfire from Ski and Hernandez and their squads must have stopped the enemy. We passed through the Marines of First Platoon, along with the remainder of Third and the heavy machine guns and automatic grenade launchers of Weapons Platoon.
Our corpsmen were frantically treating wounded Marines and getting them to the landing zone. A row of dead lay covered in ponchos. I set Li’s body down with the wounded and raced back to the firing line.
My squad joined me. Sabatini, O’Rourke, Johnson, Kovanian and the two surviving Third Platoon Marines. I saw a few Marines carried in, but couldn’t tell who they were. I deployed my Marines and we kept firing as the rest of our platoon came in.
Gunny Taylor ran along the line behind us, distributing magazines and grenades taken from the dead or evacuated Marines. We needed them; we’d done a lot of firing. He hit the deck beside me.
“Collins, the first shuttle is on the deck. Captain MacGregor is organizing fire brigades out of the headquarters Marines, engineers, and spare Marines from the mortar crews. If the line gets breached, they’ll counterattack. The three rifle platoons need to hold the line until we can get the wounded loaded. Your squad is gonna tie in with First Platoon. Don’t let these fuckers force in between us. Hold these cocksuckers off! You think you can do that?”
“Fuckin’A, Gunny.”
“Good. Now give me some cover.”
“Aye aye!” I switched to the squad frequency. “Covering fire!”
My Marines and I blazed away as Gunny Taylor sprinted off to check on second squad.
I looked over the disposition of my squad. We were pretty well spread out. Sabatini was now working with Kovanian and me, since her team was shot up. She was still solid, holding up despite the loss. I wondered how Terry was managing with his ad hoc team.
“Sabatini! You stay with Kovanian. Keep an eye on him. I’m going to check and see how
O’Rourke is doing!” I made a quick bound to where Terry and the two new replacements lay prone, separated by about five meters, firing at the advancing enemy.
Terry was doing fine. He’d positioned himself between the two newcomers and was monitoring their firing. He spoke calmly to them and kept their shooting controlled and accurate.
“How’s it going?”
“Fine and fuckin’ dandy,” he replied sourly. “Seriously, they’re OK. It’s goin’ as good as a clusterfuck like this can go.”
“Carry on, Marine,” I smiled.
“Keep your head down, brother.”
I heard a vague rumble ahead. “What the fuck’s that?”
“Shit!” Terry said, dropping his ACR and dragging the LG/BW off his back. “APCs!”
I rolled several meters to my right so the pair of us would not provide a big target to the chaingun of an APC. I scanned my front. “Kovanian!” I shouted over the squad frequency, “Get your Longbow ready! We have armor coming.”
“Aye, Corp!” he responded.
I strained my eyes into the distance. Soon the large, rectangular shape of an Armored Personnel Carrier appeared through the dust cloud a hundred meters off. It wasn’t a real APC, just a tracked construction vehicle, electric motor and a blade on the front for moving dirt, with a big cargo bay to move minerals or workers, but somebody had bolted plates onto it. In the lower G the weight wasn’t so much of an issue, so even the lighter engines could move the thing. Not heavily armored, but it had a turret on top with a 20mm chaingun and a 5mm machinegun. It could also carry ten infantrymen and had firing ports along both sides. It wasn’t much of a fighting vehicle. I assume the pirates used them for transport, but now, with the landers on the deck, they were desperate enough to risk an APC charge. The infantry would come in behind the armor, using it for cover. After the armor punched a hole in our line, the infantry would fan out and “exploit the breach”—or kick our asses, if you want it in layman’s terms. I knew the drill. I’d done it.
While I waited for Terry’s voice, I fired a few 20mm grenades at the deck past the sides of the APC, hoping to hit some of the sheltering infantry with fragments.
“Ready, boss.”
O’Rourke had the APC in his sights.
I fired three quick shots at the turret to get the gunner’s attention, then rolled five meters to my right. As the turret swiveled to bear on me, a rocket streaked toward the APC, striking the front of the vehicle. The depleted uranium head penetrated the makeshift armor of the vehicle, then the high explosive shell detonated inside. The turret blew clear off the vehicle as ammo and fuel went up.
A cheer went up from our squad.
“Ooo-rah! Take that, taxi driver!” I shouted.
“I got your fire superiority right here!” yelled Terry.
A second APC rumbled into view, but lurched sideways as Kovanian put a rocket into its flank. It didn’t explode, but the hatch opened and the crew scrambled out along with the billowing smoke. One of them jerked and fell off the vehicle as a Marine bullet took him.
Infantry traditionally fear and hate enemy armor. If you don’t have heavy enough weapons, you get rolled right over and machine-gunned, so when we get the upper hand, we can be just as merciless. I suppose it goes back to when the average peasant foot soldier feared the armored knight, or scythe-wheeled chariot. I imagine the English archers at Agincourt were as thrilled as we were to see armored cavalry wiped out by lowly infantry.
As their armor failed, the enemy infantry fanned out from behind the wrecked vehicles.
“Just hold a few more minutes!” I heard over my headset. “The shuttles are on the deck!”
“Give ’em hell, Marines!” I shouted, firing at the enemy. They were getting real aggressive now, and we were burning up a lot of ammo. Well, they don’t pay us to bring it home.
My bolt closed on an empty chamber. I hit the magazine release and reached back with my right hand for another in the pouch on my web belt. As I inserted the fresh magazine, I heard an explosion to my right. I looked over and saw a First Platoon Marine flung through the air like a doll. Two of his buddies rushed to him, grabbed him and started to carry him back. One stumbled and fell, but struggled back to his feet as the other dragged the wounded man away.
Never leave a brother behind.
The only problem was, that made a hole in the line. They probably should have held and waited for a corpsman, but I won’t judge. He wasn’t my buddy.
“Fuck!” I shouted. I looked at my squad. I was closest to the gap. “Sabatini! I’m going to the right! You and Kovanian move right behind O’Rourke and tie in with me.”
“Aye aye!”
“I’m going now. Cover me!”
I took off in a sprint as my teammates blazed away. I made for a low, shattered stump of a column.
Five meters short of cover, I felt a white hot flash of pain shoot up from my kneecap. Christ, they hit me! I thought in disbelief. I staggered a few more steps. Each time my left foot hit the ground, new waves of agony ran through me. I fell and dragged myself behind cover.
“Mick!” Sabatini’s voice came over my headset.
“I’m fine,” I lied. I looked at my knee. It was a crimson ruin. The blood was already freezing on the suit, steaming in the cold. The cold also mercifully numbed the shattered joint.
I released the straps of my shinguard, pulled a dressing from my cargo pocket, and wrapped it around my leg, holding the broken bits of kneecap in place. The pain was excruciating. The world went grey and I felt nauseous. I forced myself to concentrate. I had to hold on if any of us were going to get out. I grit my teeth and tied off the bandage.
I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to focus on the enemy, to find a target. I doubted I would get to the shuttle with a wound like this, but I wanted to take a lot of the bastards down before they got me. It was tough focusing on my sights with the pain blurring my vision, so I switched my selector to 20mm grenades. If I could only get close to the pricks, I could still kill them.
I was suddenly aware of two Marines sliding to cover with me.
“We’ve got you, boss,” said Kovanian.
“You’re not getting away from me this easy, you bastard,” Angelina said over my own channel, her voice fierce.
We kept shooting. I felt a hypo in my leg. I panicked. A painkiller could make me too dopey to fight or move. Not that I expected to move. I twisted around and saw Doc Roy.
“It’s only local,” said the corpsman. “A nerve block so we can drag you and you don’t puke in your respirator from pain.”
Pirates were advancing, meter by costly meter. They knew that if we got the landers airborne, it was over for them. With nothing to lose, they surged forward, weapons blazing, willing to die.
Which suited me, as I was perfectly willing to kill them. Sabatini went prone a few meters to my right, squeezing off shots with deliberate precision. I heard the bark of Kovanian’s ACR from behind me. I shut out the pain which throbbed in time with my pulse, focusing through my scope. That field became my world. I fired a grenade at a rock one of the enemy was sheltering behind. He stood up just as I pulled the trigger, and the 20mm high explosive round hit him in the head. There was a flash and a spray of gory shrapnel, and then the decapitated body toppled over, blood pouring out the neck like a dropped beer bottle.
A heavy weight landed on my back as I lay and fired at the enemy. I had no time to see what it was. I changed magazines and went back to firing.
I heard a wheezing gurgle over the squad frequency. It was Kovanian’s voice, trying to cough his way through a sentence.
I knew what was on my back.
Kovanian thrashed and coughed, jolting me off target. I shrugged him off, cursing.
I shot down another enemy soldier as he made a dash forward.
It sounds cold, but it’s the way the world works. I wanted to turn and help Kovanian, but I couldn’t. If I stopped firing for the minutes it would take to bandage him, we’d be ov
errun. And then they’d shoot us both anyway, and punch a hole in our line and more Marines would die. I let my anger find outlet through my marksmanship, collecting a price for Kovanian.
And Bauer. And Li. And Khan. And Sgt LeBlanc, and God knows who else.
“Corpsman!” I yelled into the mic as Kovanian writhed beside me, gasping and coughing against the blood filling his airway. Maybe they could get him out if I bought enough time.
Somebody lifted him and carried him away. They must have pulled his mask, as his choking over the mic stopped. I shot another enemy, exulting in his fall.
Suddenly, a torrent of explosions filled my vision, blotting out the scene before me. I felt a strong arm slide under my armpit, dragging me toward the ships. Another hand clutched at the straps of my body armor. I kept firing back into the dust cloud as our first shuttles circled back around to bring their guns to bear on the enemy.
“We got you, buddy!” shouted O’Rourke.
“Hang in there,” ordered Sabatini.
A moment later, they dragged me up the ramp of an assault shuttle. Doc Roy was right: I managed to not puke in my respirator, but only just. Gunny Taylor stood at the top of the ramp, firing into the enemy’s last desperate rush. He stood straight and tall. His body armor and helmet were gouged, and a patch covered the arm of his suit, but there was no mistaking the tall, lanky gunnery sergeant. His stance spoke volumes of contempt for the enemy and disdain for their fire.
The ramp slammed up as we got aboard. I heard the pang of small-arms rounds striking the armor plate. The green light came on, and I pulled off my helmet and respirator.
“All personnel accounted for,” announced an electronic voice over the ship intercom. We gave a ragged cheer. We all carried identity disks which were read by the shipboard computers. A count of all the shuttles showed the whole company aboard. We weren’t all alive, but we didn’t leave anybody behind.
I looked around at the occupants of the shuttle. O’Rourke and Sabatini were beside me, laughing and slapping me and one another. Johnson stood nearby, a grin of shocked relief on his broad, dark face. This was the old fire team.
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