The situation was untenable. Despite their very high losses in the assault on Heaven's Heights and Hymnal Hill, the Skinks still seemed to number in the tens of thousands. On his side, Sturgeon had two understrength FISTs—fewer than two thousand Marines—and the Army of the Lord. His command of the army was shaky. Archbishop General Lambsblood, the Kingdomite commander, was only reluctantly under Sturgeon's command and couldn't be relied on to obey orders. Even though the forces available to him had to outnumber the Skinks several times over, Sturgeon could only count on his own Marines to aggressively take the fight to the foe. The Skinks were always aggressive. The Marines and their allies stood to lose this fight. Unless . . .
Unless he could find a Skink center of gravity and hit it hard enough to hurt them—and spectacularly enough to give heart to the Army of the Lord.
He quietly slipped out of the operations center and returned to his office. There, he called for the FIST commanders and their intelligence and operations chiefs to join him and his own intel and ops chiefs.
"Gentlemen, I'll make this short and sweet," Sturgeon said when the eight officers crowded in. "I want to find a Skink COG—Center of Gravity. Headquarters, logistics hub, communications center. Anything that will give them a major hurt when we take it out." Nobody questioned his use of the word "when." They were Marines, they expected to give a major hurt to anybody foolish enough to go up against them.
"Put out all recon teams. Have your battalions reorganize their scout-sniper teams into recon teams. As long as we're in this static position, the infantry can spot for the big guns, so reorganize the artillery forward observer sections into recon teams and send them out as well. That'll give us fourteen recon teams. I want them all out there tonight. They will stay out until they find a target.
"We haven't lost any UAVs, so maybe the Skinks are buying their camouflage. Put your birds out, all but one company-level team per FIST. That team will cover the entire FIST defensive front. I know that'll put a crimp in your close-in surveillance, but finding a COG has top priority." His mouth twisted sourly. "The way the Skinks are hitting the lines, we can get by without the teams fairly easily; we're getting more use out of the surveillance devices outside the perimeter.
"I want to see your operations and coordination plans in three hours. Questions?"
There were none.
"Do it."
The commanders and staff officers left, and Sturgeon settled back in his chair. Nobody had said anything, but they all knew the recon teams would probably have to go belowground to find a Skink COG. By the same time tomorrow, sixty-four of his Marines were going to begin entering the caves. That would cause many, probably most, of them to lose communications. It was likely that some of them wouldn't come back and that nobody would ever find out what happened to them. Sometimes a commander had to send men to probable death. That was when being a commander was the hardest job a man could have.
Two days later Staff Sergeant Wu, 34th FIST's recon squad leader, lay burrowed into the muck and detritus under a dense bush overlooking a cave mouth on the high, steep bank of a small stream. His hands held no weapon. Recon's job was intelligence gathering. If a recon Marine had to fight, that meant his mission had failed. Like his men, Staff Sergeant Wu carried a hand-blaster and a knife, purely defensive weapons. He'd been on site for nearly four hours watching that hole in the ground. According to the string-of-pearls landsat data, the hole led into a cave complex. In six hours of observation he'd seen a score or more of smallish local animals poke their way into the cave, and more or less the same number come back out. He'd watched with interest a brief panic among the local fauna when a feral Earth pig went into the cave—that was the only entertainment he had in an otherwise boring watch.
The animals were the only activity he saw. None of the sensors the team had aimed at the cave detected anything other than those animals. The same had been true during the four-hour shifts of Corporal Steffan and Lance Corporal Sonj. Twelve hours' observation combined with lack of sign of human usage—Wu brought himself up short. What was he doing thinking of the Skinks as human? The lack of any sign of Skink usage, he corrected himself, meant that the cave mouth probably wasn't used for entry into the subsurface complex. Maybe the Skinks didn't know about it. Maybe it didn't lead into the complex. Maybe. Or maybe it was mined. Or it was a bolt-hole and was guarded inside. It probably wasn't guarded—not close to the surface, at any rate. If it was, he doubted so many animals would move in and out so casually. Whatever the situation was, there was only one way to find out.
Wu radioed in a report, then slithered out of the muck and joined the three recon Marines in their tight defensive position.
"We go in," he murmured just loud enough for them to hear.
"Send a minnie first?" Steffan asked.
"No need," Wu said. He looked toward the others. None of them had questions. They all knew they'd have to go underground to find anything important to the Skinks. "Go," he said softly.
Steffan led the way downstream. He paused on the stream bank and probed with all his senses and sensors for danger before entering the water and cleaning the accumulated mud and debris off his chameleons. Muddy water drifted off on the current, away from the cave mouth. They were all filthy, even Lance Corporal Zhon, who hadn't taken a turn watching the cave. They had to wash off because the dirt made them visible. Cleaned, Steffan moved into cover on the stream's opposite side. Wu went next, followed by Sonj. Zhon brought up the rear.
They moved inland and circled around to approach the cave from upstream. Their chameleons quickly dried as they walked, and they were again effectively invisible to the human eye.
Steffan approached the cave while the other three kept watch from inside the forest. The cave didn't look like much from the outside, just a split in a rock face that had been revealed by erosion of the high, steep bank. Steffan used his HUD to check the sensors still in place across the stream. They showed just the four Marines and some small animals. The split was wide enough for a man to sidle through, but low. Steffan angled his torso and started into the split but jerked back out when something skittered across his feet. He let out a breath of relief when something resembling a hedgehog scampered away. He bent again and slid into the cave.
A meter or so inside, the cave widened enough so he didn't have to sidle. His infra showed a few small animals hiding behind rocks or in corners of the cave's irregular walls. With his light-gatherer he saw rubble on the uneven floor—fallen rocks, scattered bones, droppings, a couple of nests. The dirt on the cave floor had been disturbed by the feral pig that visited recently, but showed nothing that resembled a Skink footprint. A few meters ahead the walls spread out, the floor rose, and the roof dropped so the cave was less than a meter high and nearly two shoulder widths wide. He lowered himself and looked through the narrow place. A wall was some distance beyond it, but he couldn't tell whether the cave ended there or turned before the wall. As he duck-walked forward to see through the narrowing, he was aware of someone entering the cave behind him. He had to lower himself to hands and knees to get close enough to see beyond the narrowing. Beyond it, the floor dipped, then rose again before the tunnel turned to the left.
He shifted aside to allow Staff Sergeant Wu to squeeze in beside him.
Wu touched helmets and asked, "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
"Go." Wu slid back to let Steffan pass, then followed. Sonj and Zhon trailed without having to be told.
Two or three turns in from the entrance the cave was pitch-black and their light-gatherer shields were worthless. So they used infrared torches to see by. The cave twisted and turned, rose and fell. In one place there was a sheer four-meter drop, in another a climb nearly as high. There were a couple of spots they only squeezed through with difficulty.
At least the big ones can't get through here, Wu thought. He shuddered at the memory of a close encounter he'd had with one of the giant Skinks earlier in the campaign.
Four hours
later, after following three kilometers of twists and turns, they began to see farther than their infra lamps should have allowed. Steffan stopped and raised his infra shield. Yes, there was a faint red luminescence up ahead.
Wu looked over his shoulder. The light didn't seem to have a source, it simply was. To the best of Wu's knowledge, Kingdom didn't harbor any life-forms that generated red luminescence; the light had to be artificially generated.
Touching helmets with Steffan, he said, "Careful," then added over his helmet comm to everyone, "Lights off." The recon Marines turned off their infra lamps.
The Marines resumed their advance, stepping carefully. All senses at peak, they moved much slower than before, stepping with what naive observers would have thought as theatrical slowness.
The faint luminescence grew to a dim glow when Steffan went around a bend in the tunnel. Ahead he saw that it seemed to emanate from the cave wall. Voices and the whine of a motor began to echo in the cave. Ever so cautiously, he approached the light source. It came from a narrow chink in the tunnel wall. Stepping carefully so he didn't kick the chips of rock below the split, he looked through it and whispered one word into his helmet comm: "Paydirt." Then moved forward so Wu could move up and see what he'd found.
The hole Wu looked through was only as wide as a man's hand, but the rock was a thin wall at that point. Beyond it was a huge cavern dimly lit by a few red lights strung overhead. A stack of crates next to the split blocked his view in one direction, but as far as he could see in other directions, the cavern was filled with rows of similar stacks, wide passageways between rows. A Skink stood on top of one stack directing two others who were maneuvering vehicles to move stacks. They moved three stacks out of a row, then maneuvered into the space they'd cleared and lifted two stacks that had been behind the three they'd moved and moved them out of sight, then came back and replaced the three they'd moved out of the way. They disappeared again in the direction in which they'd taken the two stacks and paused. The changing pitch of the motors told Wu the mover picked up the stacks. The supervisor clambered off the stack he stood on, mounted a smaller vehicle, and drove in the direction of the removed stacks. The others sounded like they followed him with their burdens.
Wu listened to the whine of the motors diminish into the distance until he couldn't hear them any longer. Then he watched and listened for another fifteen minutes without seeing any motion or hearing any sounds other than his own breathing. He slipped his hand into the crack and slid it up and down. The wall was irregular on his side but smooth on the other—obviously, the cavern had been enlarged and finished. In no place was the wall more than four centimeters thick. He probed for a thin spot, grasped it tightly, and snapped off a small piece which he carefully put in a pocket of his trousers. He picked up another piece from the pile below the crack and put it in a different pocket. He suspected that when the Skinks enlarged the cavern, they'd made this split and didn't notice it.
"Minnie," he whispered into his comm. Zhon reached into Sonj's pack and withdrew the minnie—in the tight confines it was easier to get the miniature recording robot from someone else's pack than from his own. He passed it forward.
Wu took the robot. It was eight centimeters high, six wide, twelve long, and camouflaged to resemble a rodentlike animal native to Kingdom. He keyed instructions into the minnie and reached through the crack to put it down next to the stack of crates. He watched for a few seconds as the recon robot scuttled along the base of the stack. If he hadn't known what it was, he would have thought it was a rat. Then he whispered, "Continue" into his helmet comm.
A few hundred meters farther, the tunnel was completely blocked by a rock fall. The fall wasn't recent. The Skinks probably didn't realize the tunnel existed. The recon team reversed direction. They stopped again for a few minutes at the crack to retrieve the minnie.
Brigadier Sturgeon allowed another day after the team led by 34th FIST's recon squad leader reported in, but none of the other teams reported finding a target. Orders went out for the other teams to come in, though the disguised UAV birds stayed out on their surveillance flights. By the end of the fourth day of intensive reconnaissance, all but two of the fourteen teams were back inside the defensive lines. Contact had yet to be established with one of those two, and the other had walked into an ambush on its way back and was wiped out. It was time to begin to strike back.
"We have no hard data—" Captain Landou, 34th FIST's psy/ops section commander began. He cleared his throat and began again. "We have no specific data on how the Skinks will react to an action taken against an area they must consider secure. Nonetheless, it's probable that they will react defensively to a strike against what is most likely a major supply depot. We know they have not gotten resupply or reinforcements since the Grandar Bay arrived in orbit. This means they necessarily have a finite store of supplies. If we can destroy a significant part of their supplies, it must have an effect on how they conduct operations in the future, an effect that likely will be of benefit to us. Psy/ops concurs in the recommendation for a strike."
He looked at the commanders and staff assembled in the MEF briefing room, but nobody had any questions; not that he'd expected any. They had heard the report on what Staff Sergeant Wu had found in the cave and intently studied the vid made by the minnie. They were itching to act. "Thank you, sir," Landou said to Brigadier Sturgeon when he finished his report and stepped away from the lectern.
"Three?" Sturgeon said.
Commander Usner, MEF operations officer, stepped up to the lectern. His face bore an expression that could be described as a grim grin.
"Sir, we believe we can conduct a successful raid on the supply depot discovered by Staff Sergeant Wu and his patrol. It will take a minimum of one infantry company and a sapper section." It only took two minutes for him to describe the raid Brigadier Sturgeon had already approved. He could tell by the way they listened that both FIST commanders and their respective infantry commanders wanted the mission—just as Sturgeon had predicted.
When he finished, Sturgeon took the lectern. The Marine Expeditionary Forces commander also looked grim, but his grimness bore resolution.
"Gentlemen," he said after looking at the assembled officers and senior noncommissioned officers, "we will call this ‘Operation Doolittle’ and do it. Jack, Commander Usner and his people will work with your staff to help them draw a plan for Doolittle. I want the plans on my desk at dawn. Ram, I'm sorry," he said to Colonel Ramadan, "but 34th FIST has been getting most of the action. I wouldn't want Jack to think I'm playing favorites.
"If there are no questions, that is all." He paused a second, then stepped from the lectern and marched from the briefing room.
"Attention!" Brigadier Sparen shouted, and everybody leaped to their feet.
"Commander," Sparen said to Usner as soon as Sturgeon was gone, "if I may see you for a moment?"
The others took that as their signal to leave, and returned to their duties.
The plan for Operation Doolittle that Brigadier Sturgeon approved first thing the next morning called for one infantry company, reinforced by one platoon and an assault platoon from another company, plus the sapper section from the FIST's engineer platoon.
Chapter Ten
"Lord." The Over Master knelt on the matting and bowed his head to the floor before his commander. "I have troubling news." The Over Master quivered with fear in anticipation of the outburst he was sure would come. But to suffer the Great Master's anger now would be preferable to what would happen if the news were withheld.
"Our battle plan is proceeding according to plan, is it not?" the Great Master rumbled, his deep-throated tones cutting the Over Master like a whiplash.
"Operation Rippling Lava is most certainly proceeding as planned, Lord," the Over Master replied. "The news concerns the Earthmen pond scum by the great sea that we wiped out recently. Not all were eliminated in our attack. I seek your permission now to finish off the survivors."
"How did they s
urvive?" the Great Master asked.
"We believe they were some distance apart from the main camp and were missed by the assault force, Lord."
"And who was in command?"
The Over Master named the Senior Master who had command of the attack on the City of God's encampment in the hills above the Sea of Gerizim. The Great Master wheezed angrily through his nearly atrophied gill slits. The Over Master cringed, anticipating an explosion. But the Great Master merely grunted. "Have him die, at once," was all he said.
"Yes, Lord, at once." It was apparent that the Great Master was in a good mood this morning. Were he not, he'd have ordered the deaths of all the officers involved in the City of God raid, not just the one in overall command.
"You will join me in a cup," the Great Master said, a certain sign that he was in a good mood and that the Over Master's life was safe—for the present. The Great Master signaled to one of the females stationed in the far reaches of the room. She shuffled to the Great Master's side, bearing a tray with a gracefully shaped ceramic pot and two delicate cups. After the preparatory ritual was completed, they sipped the steaming liquid gratefully, their lips making wet smacking noises; deep, satisfied, guttural sighs issuing from their throats.
The Great Master leaned back and stroked the pommel of his sword contentedly. "Of the ones who survived," he said, "do not worry about them for now. Operation Rippling Lava must proceed, and our entire effort shall be devoted to its success. We cannot afford to waste time and effort on these ridiculous barbarians. When we have destroyed the main body of Earthmen pond scum," he spit the word out like poison, "we shall deal with the others who remain. Those we do not kill we can use in our various enterprises. What of the prisoners?"
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