Starfist - 12 - Firestorm

by Dan Cragg

  “Y-Yes, Sergeant Kerr, I know that’s why you put me there.”

  Kerr had the grace to flush, even though his face couldn’t be seen behind his helmet’s chameleon screen.

  “I saw all the rooms were empty except for the one,” Doyle continued. “I took my Marines in and we waited for the signal. Then we went in.”

  “That was showing good initiative, Doyle, checking the windows before you went in the building. You did a good job there.”

  “Th-Thank you, Sergeant Kerr!”

  “We’ll make a proper fire team leader of you yet.”

  Now that he was off the Dragon and walking again, Lance Corporal Dave “Hammer” Schultz was in his element, holding the point of the unit on the task force’s right flank—the most exposed position in the entire task force. It didn’t matter to him that a Force Recon squad was several hundred meters to his front; Schultz still considered himself to be in the most exposed position in the FIST. Force Recon’s job wasn’t fighting, not yet: now, their responsibility was to scout the way and report back if they found enemy forces ahead. His job, Schultz’s job, was to find any enemy along the FIST’s route and kill them.

  Now that Corporal Claypoole had stopped chattering, all of Schultz’s senses were attuned to his surroundings. He wasn’t thinking about Claypoole, but if he had he would have thought the man was a good enough Marine—even if he sometimes talked too much, and didn’t always think before he did things. He’d also have thought that Claypoole was a good enough fire team leader; he’d never lost a man because of a mistake he’d made, anyway. It wasn’t Claypoole’s fault that Lance Corporal “Wolfman” MacIlargie got so badly wounded in that fight with the armored cars. Could have happened to anybody, even to Schultz. And, maybe most important, Claypoole stayed off Schultz’s back, let him do what he did, the best way he could.

  Of course, if Schultz had thought those things, he would have thought them in far fewer words. Most certainly he would have used fewer words had he spoken those thoughts.

  Schultz knew exactly where he was going to place his feet as he walked—not only his next step, but the next twenty or more. He knew from step to step exactly where he would go for cover if the enemy attacked from the front, or where he’d take cover if they attacked from the side, or from any other direction. He saw for each place along his route exactly where an enemy unit might be lying in ambush. Or where an individual observer or sniper might be hiding.

  Schultz knew these things not only for the places close to him, but he would have known the ambush, sniper, and observer locations all the way to the horizon had the FIST been moving through open land. But they were in thin forest, and he couldn’t see to the horizon in any direction.

  His senses were sufficiently attuned to his surroundings that Schultz wasn’t in the least surprised that he felt the presence of the enemy in an area that Force Recon had already gone through without reporting them.

  “Left front, three hundred,” he murmured over the squad circuit.

  Sergeant Kerr came back immediately with, “How many?”

  “Wait. Don’t see us.” Which from the taciturn Schultz meant “I don’t know yet. They don’t know we’re here yet.” He continued advancing as though he hadn’t detected enemy three hundred meters away.

  Kerr reported to Ensign Bass. Bass relayed the report to Captain Conorado, then elected to listen in on Schultz’s transmissions.

  Three hundred meters. Schultz could see that far only in spots that shifted as he advanced. Whoever was there wasn’t making enough noise to carry through the trees at that distance. Neither was anybody moving in a manner visible in the intermittent view Schultz had of the area. Nor were they cooking, or he’d smell their food. Schultz couldn’t tell how he knew somebody was there, he only knew that he could. And so did every Marine who’d ever spent time with him in the field—particularly time spent when their lives depended on Schultz detecting enemy before anybody else could.

  The line Schultz was following brought him within a hundred meters of the enemy. He stayed aware of his full surroundings, but gave particular attention to where he’d sensed them. It was a few minutes before he was able to make a follow-up report.

  “Company plus. Maybe alert. Maybe more behind them,” he said.

  “How far, Hammer?” Bass asked.

  “Hundred, hundred and fifty.” Then, just to make sure, he added, “Left.”

  Bass switched to the platoon all-hands circuit. “Keep moving, but be alert. Schultz reports more than a company to our left.”

  Captain Conorado put the rest of the company on alert, ready to attack the enemy ambush at an instant’s notice.

  Corporal Reginald Thorntrip, a 4th Composite Infantry Division scout assigned to the 319th battalion of the 222nd Infantry Brigade, puzzled over his sensor displays. They’d been showing intermittent movement across the battalion’s front for fifteen minutes, but he couldn’t see anything through the trees where the sensors told him it was. He knew the Confederate Marines had raided the 7th MP Battalion’s camp and were probably headed toward Phelps—that was why Major General Sneed had ordered the 319th of the 222nd to set an ambush along the route to Phelps. The battalion set up in a box, a reinforced company facing west and another facing east, along the Ashburtonville road. The remaining company was in the middle, ready to reinforce wherever it might be needed. Thorntrip knew that the Confederation Marines had field uniforms that made them invisible, which was why he’d set out motion detectors. But the movement his sensors were picking up was intermittent, which didn’t make any sense. Unless…

  Unless the Confederation Marines were moving on a line just inside his sensor line. After all, the motion detectors didn’t have a 360-degree field of detection, just two hundred degrees. So if the Marines were closer than the detectors, but not too much closer, they might only show up intermittently.

  Corporal Thorntrip wished he had infrared sensors, or at least infrared glasses, but he didn’t, so he examined the motion detector display in light of the idea that the Marines were closer than the sensors. The intermittent movement was concentrated several hundred meters to his right, then faded out as it moved from right to left across his front. He puzzled over that for a moment. The change in frequency of detected movement could mean the Marine column was stopped, and accordioned in the place with the most movement, and the Marines were standing and moving about without advancing. Or it could mean that they were moving at an angle to the battalion’s west front, with its point getting closer and closer with every moment. In either case, the scout needed to report to the battalion commander.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lieutenant Colonel Farshuck listened to his communications man as the sergeant relayed Corporal Thorntrip’s message. “Wall, gull durn it, he’s a scout, fer cryssake! Whyn’t he get his ass out thar an’ do sum scoutin’, fine out if’n anybody’s thar?”

  “Suh,” the sergeant on the comm said, “wi’ all due respec’, suh, if’n they’s Confed’ration Marines out thar, Scout Thorntrip won’ be able ta see ’em, cause’n their invis’ble uniforms. But they’ll sure ’n’ shit be able ta see him!”

  “If’n.” Farshuck snorted. “An if’n they’s Confed’ration Army, ain’t nothin’ goan stop him fum seein’ ’em. Dang scout should get out thar an’ scout!” He turned to his operations officer, who’d been listening intently to Thorntrip’s report, and the exchange between Farshuck and the comm sergeant. “Ain’t I right, Major Applegrate.”

  Applegrate cleared his throat. “Sir, I believe Sergeant Weyover is right.” Major Applegrate had been educated offworld and affected a Standard English accent, rather than the patois common to the worlds of the Coalition. “The sketchy report Division received said that it was Confederation Marines, not army, that took out the 7th MPs. If it is indeed Marines that Thorntrip is sensing, he most certainly will not be able to see them unless he trips over one of them. Even at that, he won’t be able to see the Marine, but rather merely feel hi
m when the Marine takes him prisoner.”

  Farshuck cocked a suspicious eye at his S3—a Standard accent wasn’t Applegrate’s only vocal affectation. “Uh-huh. So’s how’s he goan know if’n thems Mo-reens out thar?”

  “Confederation Marines are visible in infrared, sir.”

  “So he should look fer ’em in inf’red!”

  Applegrate cleared his throat again. “Ah, sir, we don’t have any infrared glasses in the battalion Table of Organization and Equipment!”

  Farshuck shot Applegrate a look that Sergeant Weyover was glad wasn’t directed at him. But the S3 wasn’t affected by it. Either that, or he didn’t notice.

  “Suh,” Farshuck snarled, “this hyar is mah b’talion, I knows we don’ have any inf’red glasses in arn TO ’n’ E. But the scout is fum Division, and Division do have inf’red equipment.”

  “Yes, sir, I, too, know that. However, Sergeant Thorntrip is assigned to Brigade, and I don’t believe he brought any Division equipment with him.”

  “Wall, he shoulda.” Farshuck turned to Weyover. “Aks thet scout he got hisself any inf’red ’quipment.”

  “Yes, suh,” Weyover said, and bent to his comm. After a moment he looked up helplessly, swallowed, and said, “Suh, Scout Thorntrip says he ain’t got no inf’red ’quipment.”

  “Dang it all t’ blazes!” Farshuck swore. “How’ns we s’posed ta see if’n Confed’ration Mo-reens is out thar if’n we ain’t got no inf’red cap’bil’ties?”

  Weyover swallowed again and said, “Suh, Scout Thorntrip, he say he do believe the lead el’ment of thet Marine unit mus’ be at the south end of the killin’ zone. And gettin’ closer, suh.”

  “He do?” Farshuck suddenly looked interested rather than annoyed. “Wall then, I thinks it’s ’bout time we sprung this hyar ambush on them Mo-reens. Git me Cap’n—”

  But before Farshuck could give the name of the commander of Easy Company, the company on the west side of the box formation, gun and blaster fire broke out along that front.

  The Coalition forces lying in wait for the Marines had good cover in visual, but as the Marines approached closer to the enemy positions, they began picking up traces of them in the infrared. By the time Lance Corporal Schultz reached the far end of the ambush’s killing zone, he could see the infrared signatures of three of the soldiers almost completely.

  Schultz reported, “At the end.”

  Ensign Charlie Bass relayed the message to Captain Conorado, who replied, “Tell him to go twenty-five meters beyond the end of the ambush, then open fire on the nearest target. That’ll be your signal to hit the ambush.” He then contacted Ensign Antoni, whose first platoon followed third platoon, and told him to open fire to his left when third platoon opened fire. Second platoon’s orders were to move briskly to the left and swing around to take the ambush from its flank.

  Schultz got his orders seconds after giving his final report. He’d gone another five meters in the interval, so he picked a spot twenty meters to his front. When he reached that spot, he pivoted left, leveled his blaster, and fired two plasma bolts at the closest heat signature. He got off another bolt, at the next closest signature, before any of the other Marines got off their first bolts. The first soldiers of the 319th of the 222nd Brigade didn’t get off their first shots until all the Marines of two companies were firing at them. By which time their strength was already down by almost twenty percent.

  The ambushers fired fléchettes wildly, many of their shots going too high to hit the Marines even if they’d remained on their feet. But the Marines hadn’t remained standing, they’d dropped to the ground as soon as they got off their first bolts. It did the ambushers little good to fire where they saw the bolts come from, because the Marines moved after nearly every bolt they fired. But the Coalition soldiers didn’t move after firing, and their rifle barrels were warm enough to show in infra, which gave the Marines better targets to fire at. Casualties mounted.

  Lieutenant Colonel Farshuck may have acted a buffoon when he received the first report from Corporal Thorntrip, but once the battle was engaged he demonstrated that he knew his business. The sounds of fire told him the company being engaged by the Marines was in serious trouble and suffering heavy casualties. The first thing he did was order Fox Company, his reserve, into the line to bolster Easy Company, which was having anything but an easy time of it. Then he ordered George Company, facing east, to send a reinforced platoon around the north side of the box to hit the Marines from the flank.

  After that, all he could do was report the contact to Brigade, and sit back to listen to the sounds of battle and the stream of communications from his company commanders—and hope the movement along the west side of his box wasn’t a diversion, and that a larger force wasn’t coming along the Ashburtonville road.

  Second platoon got into position to rake the flank of the ambush, but held its fire, waiting for Captain Conorado’s order to open up. That’s what saved it from being hit by the reinforced platoon from the 319th’s George Company when it came barreling through.

  Corporal Patricus, whose fire team held the left of second platoon’s line, was startled to see Coalition soldiers running past, just a few meters in front of him. But he recovered almost immediately, and reported to Ensign Molina. “It looks like a reinforced platoon,” he answered when his platoon commander asked how many there were. “And they aren’t in a straight column,” he added as he took a step back to avoid one of the soldiers running by.

  “Second platoon,” Molina said laconically, “take them out. Grab a few prisoners if you can.”

  Patricus looked to his left, saw more soldiers running his way, took a step forward, and stuck out his foot. A running soldier ran into the extended foot and went flying, to land heavily on his face. Patricus turned to face another onrushing soldier. Holding his blaster across his body, he slammed it into the soldier’s abdomen below his arms, which were holding his rifle at port arms.

  While Patricus was dealing with that soldier, one of his men used wrist ties to secure the soldier Patricus had tripped, and his other man tackled another surprised soldier. In seconds, Patricus’s fire team had taken three prisoners. The fire team leader then ordered his men to open fire on the soldiers still coming their way.

  When Lieutenant Colonel Farshuck heard about the trouble the platoon from George Company ran into, he commanded Sergeant Weyover, “Fine out if’n the scout wit Jojeh Comp’ny got hissef any sign a Confed’rates.” Then to Major Applegrate, “If’n nobody’s comin’ on thet side, I wan’ the res’ a Jojeh Comp’ny ta go roun’ the noth flank a Easy Comp’ny, an’ go through shootin’!

  “In a meantime, ah’m goan for’ard, take a look-see fer mahsef.”

  Major Applegrate watched his commander head west, with three riflemen for security. If the S3 knew his commander, those three riflemen would shortly join their fire to that of Easy and Fox Companies. Not that three extra rifles would do a lot of good if the Confederation Marines were seriously hurting the battalion—and from the changing gunfire he heard, it sounded like they were. When Farshuck was far enough away, Applegrate looked at Weyover, who was just finishing talking to the other scout.

  “Well, Sergeant?” he asked.

  “Suh, ain’ nobody comin’ on a east side,” Weyover reported.

  “Get me the George Company commander.” Applegrate held his hand out to receive the comm unit. He’d accompany George Company on its movement.

  Commander van Winkle, the commander of 34th FIST’s infantry battalion, had his command element located between Company L and Mike Company, with Kilo Company trailing. Unlike the companies, which weren’t able to use their UAVs while on the move so far from their home base, his UAV squad rode in a Dragon, so the controllers could operate their birds.

  “Pull one of them back. I want to see what’s happening on the north side of the enemy force,” van Winkle told Ensign Qumell, the UAV commander.

  “Aye aye, sir.” Qumell looked at the monitors to see wh
ich UAV was closer to the north end of the action, then told its operator to head north and sweep to the east.

  “Coming up.”

  Van Winkle examined the monitor over the operator’s shoulder. “Head east, toward the road,” he said once he’d seen the dead and captured Coalition soldiers who’d run into Company L’s second platoon. “I just know there are more troops in that direction.”

  In little more than a minute the UAV, swooping through the tree-tops, disguised as a local avian carrion eater, found the rest of George Company forming on line to sweep through the area held by Company L’s second platoon.

  “XO,” van Winkle said to his executive officer, Captain Uhara, “alert Conorado that his flanking platoon has a superior force assembling to advance toward it.” As Uhara said, “Aye aye, sir,” van Winkle turned back to the UAV operator. “Swing to the south, let me see where they came from.”

  The UAV operator did as van Winkle said, and came across the command post of the 319th Battalion.

  “Good work, Marine.” Van Winkle clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep an eye on those troops assembling to the east, let me know when they start moving.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Van Winkle next watched the UAV that was prowling above the ambush line that Company L was fighting and saw the south end of it was completely out of the battle. He turned to Uhara again and said, “Contact Conorado. Tell him to have his point squad start rolling up the flank of that company.”

  Sergeant Kerr listened to the orders from Ensign Bass, then relayed them to his men. “Second squad, listen up. According to higher, there’s nobody facing us now. We’re moving in to roll up their flank. Everybody, use your infras. Hammer, lead the way one hundred meters to the right, then circle in. Questions? Let’s do this thing.”