L13TH 01 Until Relieved

by Rick Shelley

  There was no answer, no claim of injuries.

  “Anyone see any Heggies, any sign at all?” Ponks asked next. “That must have been a shoulder-fired rocket that got us.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Kilgore said. His whisper sounded particularly raspy. “Don’t hear anything that sounds like people either.”

  The others added their own negatives, more tersely.

  “Don’t look like the old girl’s hurt too bad,” Simon said a moment later.

  “No time to worry about that now,” Ponks replied. “We might still have company. Everybody stay put until we get help in.”

  With hardly a pause, Ponks said, “Rosey? You copying any of this?” Rosey–Technical Sergeant Rositto Bianco–was the chief of their support crew.

  “We’ve got a lock on your position, Gunny,” Rosey replied. “We’re already highballin’ it your way.”

  “Be careful, bogeys around,” Ponks said.

  “So I gathered. Just don’t get your butts shot off till we get there. We’ve got six zippers and a splat gun. We’ll take care of anything we find. And if we can’t, there’s a pair of Wasps almost on top of you now. You see anything ’fore we get there, give the sky-guys a shout.”

  “Looks like the gun might be salvageable,” Ponks said, a little doubtful. He couldn’t see enough of Basset two to say that with any confidence. Still, it hadn’t been destroyed outright, and under garrison conditions it might easily be repairable . . . but in the field, far from most of the 13th? He doubted that they would have time to do much work. The damage under the bent skirt might be too extensive for anything less than a full shop,

  “I’Il eyeball it when we get there,” Rosey said. “Just remember, a gun can be replaced a lot easier than a head. So keep it down.”

  Damn right, I’ll keep it down, Ponks thought. He reached down along his side and slid his pistol from its holster. There was no room for Armanoc zippers in a Havoc. The only personal weapon that a gun bunny carried was a Depliht Mark VII RA semiautomatic pistol. The RA stood for rocket-assisted. The Mark VII fired a 7mm projectile on a 12.5mm base, a shorter version of the round that the Dupuy cough gun used. As soon as the slug cleared the barrel, the rocket ignited and burned long enough to double the muzzle velocity–about the time It took to travel ten meters. Since most pistol work, took place at less than ten meters, the explosive, needle-nosed projectile would usually still be accelerating when it hit its target. That close, body armor did not prevent deep penetration. Any torso hit had a good chance of being lethal.

  Ponks looked around with different objectives now, trying to estimate where the rocket that had stopped the Fat Turtle had come from. After a moment he had to concede that he had absolutely no idea. The way that Simon had slewed the Havoc around in his futile attempt to avoid the rocket, and the way Eustace had run and rolled escaping, made it impossible for him to even hazard a guess. The enemy who had stopped Basset two might be anywhere.

  An itch started on the back of Ponks’s neck. He resisted the urge to make a sudden move, but he had to look behind him. He slid slowly, crabbing around to look all of the way behind him, pausing after every move, scanning the night with eyes and ears. He kept his head down, the chin strap of his helmet touching the ground. With his eyes no more than fifteen centimeters off of the dirt, his view was extremely limited, and there was still a slight sense of a hollow ringing in his ears, uncomfortable, and enough to blanket all but the most blatant of sounds.

  Where are you? he asked silently. I want you before you get me or any of my men.

  * * *

  For the moment the only shooting was coming from the Accord forces surrounding the barracks buildings. Joe looked around quickly, surprised. They can’t all be dead in there, he told himself. No ammunition? Or are they just waiting to sucker us in?

  “Cease fire!” The order came directly from Captain Ingels, over the all-hands circuit. “Save your wire until you can see a target.”

  The silence that came was not complete. The fires started by the rockets were making crackling noises. Part of the one building was still afire. Something inside–most likely a rocket, or a crate of them–cooked off with a noisy bang. There was still no shooting from inside any of the buildings.

  Joe looked over toward where Max Maycroft had died. He didn’t go to him. Even from a distance, it seemed clear that there would be nothing recognizable left–nothing Joe wanted to see. Max was gone. Joe’s jaw worked, as if by its own volition. Max gone? It was impossible, yet, to think of life without Max.

  Joe blinked several times, then took a deep breath and looked toward the building again, at the hole where the wall had exploded outward. Even after that, there had been shooting coming from the upper story. That had stopped quickly enough though as the men in there had jumped for whatever chance of safety they saw. The next building over, a mate to the one that had burned, had a smaller hole in the wall. There still had to be enemy soldiers in that barracks.

  “Baerclau.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” Joe replied over the same channel.

  “You’re platoon sergeant now,” Lieutenant Keye said.

  Joe hesitated before he said, “Yes, sir.” He hadn’t progressed to thinking about that yet. He was the senior squad leader in 2nd platoon, so the shift in duties was automatic. But the job might not last for long. Keye didn’t have the authority to make a permanent promotion, and Captain Ingels might decide to shuffle someone in from one of the other platoons, but even if he did, that would not happen in the middle of a fight, probably not until they got back to the rest of the 13th, up on the plateau–or even back on the ships.

  “Lieutenant?” Joe said after another pause.

  “What?’’

  “There are still Heggies in those buildings.”

  “I know. Captain hasn’t decided how we’re going to handle this yet.”

  “A few Vrerchs to tidy things up?” Joe suggested.

  “I doubt it, but then, it’s not my call,” Keye said. After a short pause, he said, “Spooky, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe they’re trying to find a channel to surrender over.”

  “Or they’re hoping for reinforcements. Keep your eyes peeled. I’ve got to talk to the captain.”

  Tanks or infantry? Joe wondered. Or air? The Schlinal garrison ought to have plenty of all three available, and not very far away, Joe thought. He didn’t have long to ponder the possibilities. Keye was back on the channel too quickly.

  “Let’s move, Joe,” Keye said. “We get up and start forward again, for the building on the right. See what kind of reaction we get.”

  “You mean see if we get our asses shot off?” Joe said as he stuck a full spool of wire into his carbine. He saved the old spool. There were still a few meters of wire on that, and every centimeter of wire might be important, before this campaign ended.

  “Better not be your ass they get,” Keye said.

  Joe switched to the platoon command channel and ordered the men up. More from habit than anything else. Joe led the way with first squad. Lieutenant Keye had joined them by that time. He did not suggest any different alignment, and he stayed with the squad.

  Hilo Keye was old for a lieutenant. In garrison, he often drew stares from officers and men who did not know his history. Past thirty when he joined the Accord Defense Force as an enlisted man, he had served in the ranks for nearly three year before being tapped for officer candidate school. He knew the work from both ends. He would not stay a junior lieutenant for long. It was an open secret in the 13th that Hilo Keye was slated for the fast track. He had the rare combination of extreme intelligence, a remarkable knack for the work, and well-placed relatives. He would rise at least as far as major before his lack of a military academy degree might slow his progress. If he Iived that long. The doubt there had nothing to do with his age, just with the fact of the war. Away from the ris
ks of combat, a man could look forward to reaching, or surpassing, the age of 140.

  Second platoon advanced nearly half the remaining distance to the building next to the burned-out shell before the Schlinal forces started firing again. This time, the gunfire was sporadic, uncoordinated.

  “Get to the wall,” Keye ordered. “That’ll give us some cover.”

  Joe’s instinct was to run as fast as he could for the partial shelter of the building’s wall, and the rubble–most of that from the neighboring barracks–that was scattered in front of it, but he checked his speed enough to look around to see how the men of his squad, and the rest of the platoon, were faring. There was little sense of interval now. Everyone was anxious to get out of the open as fast as humanly possible. Speed was more of an ally than spacing now.

  The chaos was less complete than it appeared. Second platoon was not simply running blindly into enemy fire. They were getting covering fire from behind them, and even from across the compound, from those troops of George Company who could bring their weapons to bear. And 2nd platoon did move by squads, if with less precision than in other circumstances.

  Getting inside one building of the compound appeared to be the key to clearing up the entire kaserne. They could work from one building to another, limiting their exposure to outside fire. Of course, that kind of fighting–a room-by-room hunt for the enemy–could be the most deadly sort. There was a moment of truth entering each room, a moment of total exposure to whoever or whatever might be inside, an instant of vulnerability that could be minimized, but never eliminated. The platoon’s grenades would not last forever, and even the explosion of a grenade or two inside a room did not always guarantee the elimination of all enemies within.

  Lieutenant Keye kept his pace even slower than Joe’s. He let nearly all of the platoon move past him while he kept his head up and turning to watch for any threat to them. Keye also kept his rifle up, and he fired short bursts, trying to do as much good as he could with the weapon. He was an expert marksman when he took the time to aim, but there were still few visible targets. Hilo Keye was not fearless. He had written his will long ago, and before every battle, he gave his soul over to the God he prayed to regularly. When his time came, he believed that he would be prepared. In the meantime, he had sworn an oath, and he meant to keep it as honestly as he could.

  The panes had long since been shattered or blown out of all of the windows in the barracks buildings. When Joe reached the wall, he tossed a grenade through the nearest opening, then ducked, to the side. As soon as the grenade exploded, he twisted around with his carbine’s muzzle moving into the opening. He did not fire though. Even through the blue-gray smoke, he could see that there were no living enemies in the room.

  “Inside,” he ordered first squad. “Lieutenant!”

  “Go for it,” Keye ordered over their circuit. “Cover the hallway inside and I’ll funnel the rest of the platoon through to you.”

  Joe backed off two steps, then ran forward and went through the window headfirst, grabbing the sill with one hand in an attempt to right himself. It was a far from perfect stunt. He landed off balance, and went forward onto his knees with considerably more force than he had intended. The first fire team came in the window behind him, quickly but with more care. While the men were coming in, Joe did a quick check of the three bodies in the room to make certain that they were out of action. Then he went to the interior doorway. The door was missing. He pressed himself against the wall next to the opening, carefully edging around the doorpost to look down the hallway. Once he was certain that there were no Heggies in sight, he got ready to jump to the other side of the doorway, to look back in the other direction, but Mort Jaiffer moved into position there first.

  “I’ll do it, Sarge,” Mort said.

  Mort was as careful as Joe had been, but there were no enemy soldiers visible in that direction either.

  “Secure the corridor,” Joe said, waving the rest of the squad through. “See if you can find an outside door, or a bigger hole than that window. Should be down to the left,” he told Ezra as the second fire team got ready to move out into the corridor. “It’Il take all night to get the platoon in through one window.”

  He heard the shrill yipping of wire guns being fired somewhere inside the building, off to the left, he thought, where he expected the outside door to be. He took a quick look that way. Mort and Al were at the end of the corridor, their rifles aimed upward, apparently at something or someone up a flight of stairs.

  The platoon’s second squad was coming through the window finally, so Joe moved down the hall toward Mort and Al. They noted his approach but kept their eyes on the highest steps they could see from their positions. There was a landing, nine steps up, and the men at the bottom couldn’t see around the corner.

  “I saw someone, going up,” Mort said. “Didn’t get him.”

  “He shoot back?’” Joe asked.

  “He shot, but nothing came near us,” Al said. “I don’t think he was expecting us.”

  Joe called the rest of first squad to him. “We’II do this right,” he told the two who were there already.

  “We got to go up there?” Al asked.

  “Yes,” Joe said. Be easier to just blow the building up, but I guess we can’t do that now, he thought.

  “Mort, Kam. You’re up first.” Switching to a private channel, Joe added, “Just like a drill, Kam, except this is for real. Be careful. I’ll stay close.”

  Goff looked at him and nodded. Joe couldn’t see the rookie’s eyes through his visor, but he pictured them wide open, halfway between shock and wonder.

  Mort moved up the stairs first. Kam stayed two steps below him, his rifle pointed at the highest point he could find. If an enemy gun showed at the landing, Kam would have only a fraction of a second, with luck, to get his own zipper into action first. If a grenade came bouncing down the steps, there would be little either of them could do but go flat and hope for a miracle.

  Joe waited for Mort and Kam to get to the landing and look around the comer. Then he and Al followed them up, keeping the interval. They waited at the landing until the first pair got to the top of the stairs. Ezra and the second fire team waited at the bottom of the stairs until Joe and AI reached the landing, then they hurried up to that point. Joe and AI went halfway up the second section of the stairway.

  Just like a drill. An enemy might get one or two men on the point, but there would always be someone else close enough to return the compliment, and then some.

  By the time the rest of the squad got into position, Mort and Kam were at the top of the stairwell, at the door leading out into the main corridor on that level. There was still a door in place. Behind the two men, part of the exterior wall was missing. The stairwell was right at the edge of an area that had been opened up by an RPG.

  “This is the tough part,” Mort whispered over the link to Joe.

  “Wait up,” Joe said. “Wait till we’re all in position.”

  Mort and Kam were both lying on the top stairs, only their heads and shoulders and rifles above the level of the second-story floor. Mort was on the left. The muzzle of his rifle was within a couple of centimeters of the closed door.

  The second we open that door, all hell is going to break loose, Joe thought, knowing that there was still no other way. Closed door. It looked to be a fire door, heavy–almost as if there were a layer of tank armor there. Joe guessed that the door would stop anything short of a Vrerch rocket. The door opened outward, toward the stairs. Joe went up onto the landing and stood behind the door, his back against the wall at its side.

  Trusting more to hand signs than even the secure radio links they shared, Joe showed the others what he wanted to do.

  “No use waiting for sunrise,” Joe muttered finally. He sucked in a deep breath. “Now!”

  Joe yanked the door open and used it to shelter his body, hoping t
hat he was right about the strength of its construction. As soon as there was an opening, Mort started shooting out into the corridor, Kam tossed out a grenade, aiming it in the other direction, then pulled back. Joe pushed against the door, putting his weight against the power of the hydraulic rod that was intended to close the door slowly.

  When the grenade exploded, the shock pushed the door back against Joe, but not with enough force to do any harm. He yanked on the knob again, opening it wide this time. Mort moved forward, dropping to his hands and knees as he threw himself out into the corridor. He dropped and rolled across the floor and came into a prone firing position as if that were the most natural maneuver in the galaxy.

  Kam was more awkward going out to cover the corridor in the other direction. He slipped and fell forward hard, but he caught himself on his forearms and hands and was only a fraction of a second slower than Mort in getting his rifle up into firing position. Both men sprayed short bursts toward their respective ends of the hallway, and while they were firing, Joe and AI moved out into the corridor with them, going only to their knees. Joe was behind Kam, and AI was behind Mort. With four rifles, they could hope to meet any weapon that might come out of any of the doorways that lined the hall in both directions.

  Ezra brought his men up and out then. Joe assigned one fire team to move in each direction. There were eight doorways, other than the one that led to the stairs, on that level. They had to check every room, clear every room.

  EUSTACE PONKS was beginning to feel almost comfortable slithering along on his belly. He was nearly able to forget that this was a deadly serious affair. Almost. Nearly. A continuing pressure against his temples and the hollow ringing in his ears helped to isolate his thoughts. Childhood memories touched at the edge of his awareness, games played with his two brothers and with the other children who lived in the neighborhood–neighborhood: an area perhaps as much as three kilometers in radius; homesteads had been somewhat isolated where Eustace grew up. Eustace and his friends and brothers had played at soldier quite frequently. Both brothers were also in the Accord Defense Forces. Ellis was a navigator aboard a transport: Ekko was an electronics technician, maintaining computers at one of the home ports of the fleet. Playing soldier as kids, the greatest triumph of all had been to sneak up on one of his mates and “count coup,” get close enough to be able to claim a “kill,” or just to scare the daylights out of the victim. Everyone–everyone else– would get a tremendous laugh out of that.