Starfist - 12 - Firestorm

by Dan Cragg

  Brack, firmly secured to his seat, busied himself checking the stealth and aircraft surveillance systems. They were not using the highway that ran parallel to their route because the macadam retained enough heat from the day to show up as a bright ribbon of light on an aircraft’s infrared sensors. Were vehicles, even vehicles with stealth systems turned on to full capacity, to drive along the road, they would present a contrasting image and give attacking aircraft potentially juicy targets. As it was, Brack worried that once the enemy’s fighters got airborne they might just do a reconnaissance by fire, strafing and bombing at random along the shoulder of the road. The convoy was spread out for ten kilometers behind him with plenty of interval between each vehicle, but a lucky secondary explosion could still expose them.

  The vehicle bounced violently. “Amie, slow down!” Brack shouted. “You damned near ruined my family jewels!”

  “Sorry, Sarge, but sooner we get to Austen sooner we can get under cover. Ah, screw it!” he muttered, fumbling another Capricorn out of its pack. Brack sighed, leaned over, and gave him a light.

  Cruising at 2,600 meters, just under the sound barrier, Ensign Bondo Kano, Falcon Four, in his A8E VSTOL Raptor fighter-bomber was the first and only pilot in his squadron to get airborne. He was fragged to pursue the enemy toward the Cumber Mountains and attack any target of opportunity. The antiaircraft fire from the enemy positions around Ashburtonville had been particularly intense as he climbed for altitude. His defense array had successfully deflected several direct hits from the enemy’s laser cannon; Falcon Three had not been so lucky and had gone down.

  The highway to Austen stretched out below him, a bright green strip in the darkness. He fired four of his sixteen onboard AGM34 missiles into the strip to crater the roadway. They exploded with brilliant flashes in the darkness. He made a wide arc west-to-east and came in to cut across the road at a right angle. There was a bridge down there; he could see it clearly through his infrared optics. He drew no antiaircraft fire on his pass. Was it undefended or were the AA batteries masked, waiting for a better shot? It was not a long bridge. It could be replaced quickly if the enemy had bridging equipment. No matter, it was a target and he was going to take it out. He climbed for altitude and doubled back, going into a steep dive. Suddenly the entire landscape below lighted up with AA fire. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “Falcon Four, bridge at XT945231 is hot, repeat hot!” he informed his controller. He let the onboard computer system guide the Raptor now, jinking it wildly to avoid the probing fingers of energy reaching out to him from the batteries protecting the bridge; the aircraft shuttered violently as its defensive system bled off several direct hits from the laser batteries.

  Kano took back control of his Raptor and dived for the deck, skimming along twenty-five meters above the ground at Mach 2. “Okay, motherfuckers,” he whispered, “I am going to light you up now.” He gained altitude as soon as his instruments told him he was out of range of the guns and headed back to the southeast, toward Ashburtonville, unloading his munitions along the west shoulder of the road. Then he doubled back to cover the opposite shoulder. When his missiles were gone he strafed with his laser cannon. Suddenly a huge plume of greasy orange flashed by behind him. “Gotcha!” Kano exulted. He zoomed in low for another pass and was gratified to see more secondary explosions. He’d found an enemy convoy! He blurted out the target coordinates, zooming along at treetop level now, his laser cannons winking and flashing death and destruction onto the vehicles strung out below. “Ah-haaaaaaaa!” he screamed. This was what he was born to do! He’d never felt better in his life. It was at that moment Ensign Bondo Kano flew smack into a tree that towered fifty meters above the scrub.

  “Enemy aircraft approaching! Disperse! Disperse!” the convoy commander shouted over the tactical net.

  “Move! Move! Move!” Brack shouted. Frantically, Sparks spun off away from the road. A terrific roaring noise passed overhead as the fighter-bomber made its first pass above the convoy. Now the tactical net was alive with shouting and screaming. Somewhere very close behind them a vehicle burst into flames, momentarily dimming the night-vision optics in the glare of its destruction. “Jesus!” Brack whispered. He was beginning to perspire heavily. Sparks grunted. Their vehicle bounced and jumped over ruts and underbrush, literally flying through the air in some places, coming to earth in a bone-jarring crash. Only the vehicle’s excellent suspension system kept the occupants from sustaining serious injury.

  “We’re being slaughtered,” Sparks squeaked, his voice several octaves above its normal pitch. Brack thought about making some snide remark about “family jewels,” but he was too scared to get the words out.

  “Faster, goddammit!” Brack screamed, his voice coming back. “Get the hell away from here!” The pair bounced up and down in their restraints but they didn’t care; their only thought was to get away from the enemy aircraft that was savaging the convoy. Suddenly Brack screamed a warning. Right in front of them was another vehicle stopped dead in its tracks. Sparks saw it too but not soon enough to avoid it. They ran into its rear at thirty kilometers an hour. They hardly had time to brace themselves for impact.

  Brack sat in his seat, stunned. Sparks had banged his head hard against the instrument panel and slumped unconscious in his harness. Had he not been securely strapped into his seat, the impact might have killed him. Brack sat there controlling his breathing. He dared not dismount from the vehicle and expose himself to the attacking aircraft’s IR system or both vehicles would be fired on. Well, here is as good as anyplace to wait out the attack, he thought. Suddenly the vehicle they’d run into burst into fire. The crash had ruptured its fuel cell, and flames roared up and began engulfing both vehicles!

  Brack sat frozen into his harness. Flames were everywhere. He could see Sparks’s clothes beginning to burn and felt himself catching fire. He fumbled at his harness. He felt no pain, only horror. He was going to burn to death, he knew it. Aw, fuck it, he thought , may as well just die right here. Then he felt the pain. No, goddammit, I’m not going to die here! He released his harness and opened the door. He put an arm up to shield his face and noticed his hands were on fire. But he was not going to die there, not if there was a chance to live. Clothes on fire, he stumbled out of the burning vehicle, staggered a few meters and flopped to the ground where he began rolling in the dirt to put out the fire. Someone ran up to him, grabbed him under the arms and dragged him away from the burning vehicles as they exploded in a huge ball of flame.

  Someone flashed a light and muttered, “He’s dead, poor bastard’s dead!”

  “No I am not!” Brack gasped.

  Private Amitus Sparks died in his vehicle but Sergeant Wellford Brack made it back to a field surgical hospital in Austen along with a few survivors from his unit. No more aircraft came back that night, but Ensign Bondo Kano had effectively decimated what was left of the Mylex Provisional Infantry Brigade. That was just a taste of what was in store for the rest of Davis Lyons’s army.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Lance Corporal Dave “Hammer” Schultz toggled his helmet comm off and allowed himself to groan. The wound he’d aggravated a week earlier when he left the hospital to help repulse the Coalition’s attempt to penetrate the Bataan defenses hurt from the shaking of the Dragon he rode toward fresh combat. But damned if he was going to admit to anybody that the Hammer was in pain. If only they’d get where they were going—once they were off the Dragon and he took his rightful place in third platoon’s most exposed position, the adrenaline and endorphins surging through his bloodstream would blot out the pain. But the ride seemed to be taking forever.

  The ride wouldn’t have been so bad by itself, but it was the third ride that day. The first was the longest, with the Dragons in the bellies of Essays in flight from Bataan to north of the camp of the 7th Independent Military Police Battalion. There hadn’t been enough action at the camp for Schultz’s body to pump enough adrenaline and endorphins to overcome the pain he’d suffered on the flight
. The two subsequent firefights hadn’t been enough, either. So he was in pain, but damned if Hammer Schultz would let anybody know!

  Suddenly, the roar of the Dragon’s fans shrieked higher, then rumbled down, and the armored vehicle settled to the ground. Its rear ramp dropped and the Marines surged out and to both sides. Then Marines scrambled to get out of the Dragon’s way as it rose back up on its air cushions and spun about to head off to pick up Marines from a company in another FIST.

  Schultz already had his infra screen in place by the time he exited the Dragon. As soon as the beast was out of the way, he looked to his sides and saw the red blotches of chameleoned Marines on his flanks, and beyond them. He raised his infra to take in the terrain. It was prairie that reached several kilometers, to what looked to be a dense forest. The undulations of the ground were barely visible through the vegetation, mostly grasslike and mixed shrubs that seemed seldom more than waist high. The land was higher to the right, and sloped almost imperceptibly to the left.

  Schultz toggled his comm back on before he growled. Nine of the thirty Marines of third platoon had already been wounded on the campaign, and two others were killed. That was too damn many good Marines down; somebody was going to pay. And Hammer Schultz was just the swinging dick to collect the bill.

  Twenty meters to Schultz’s left and rear, he made out the command group. Ensign Charlie Bass was on comm, talking to Captain Conorado. The platoon commander said something to Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, then Hyakowa’s voice came over the platoon circuit.

  “Third platoon! Second squad has point. Then guns and first squad. The word is we’ve got them on the run and we’re getting close to their tail-end Charlie. So Hammer, step lively. Move out.”

  “You heard the man, people,” Sergeant Kerr said on the squad circuit. “Second fire team, me, first team, third team. Move it.”

  Schultz lurched to his feet and barely bothered to check his direction before he stepped forward, leading Company L toward the last known position of a Coalition army brigade. Schultz’s pain was forgotten; he was where he was supposed to be, and doing his proper job. He barely heard Corporal Claypoole say, “Hammer, me, Ymenez.” That was the order the fire team always went in. Schultz grinned; his back was usually covered by the two worst goofballs in the company. He grinned wider; he also knew they were two of the the company’s best fighters. His grin vanished; MacIlargie was out, badly wounded, and he didn’t yet know how good a Marine Ymenez was. He stepped off between a tuft of grass and a shrub, disturbing neither in his passage. Claypoole followed fifteen meters behind.

  Schultz hadn’t gone far enough for all of Company L to exit the drop zone before he felt a tingling at the base of his neck. Without stopping, he turned to look toward the source of his sudden perception. Through the ground cover, he could just barely make out a long, low rise two hundred meters to the right. It was an ideal position to set an ambush. But was anybody actually there?

  Schultz slipped both his magnifier and infra screens into place and scanned the rise. There! Seventy-five meters ahead he spotted a small red blotch in the brush right at the top of the rise. He watched it for a few seconds—it could be a small prairie grazer—until he saw the glint of a reflection in the middle of the red blotch. He hadn’t heard of any animal on Ravenette that reflected light the way glass does. So it had to be a man, mostly hidden behind the rise. But was the man an observation post, an artillery observer, or an officer preparing to give the command for his troops to come up from hiding and open fire on the Marines passing below?

  “Rock,” Schultz said into the squad circuit, knowing that everyone in the squad, the platoon command group, and someone in the company command group would hear what he said to his fire team leader. He recalculated the distance. “Ahead, six-five mikes, right two hundred. Observation.” He used a minimum of words, but everybody who heard would know exactly where and what he meant.

  “How many?” Claypoole asked as he scanned the area Schultz indicated.

  “See one.” Schultz continued examining the rise. There! He saw another, fifty meters to his rear. “Two. Kerr’s flank.”

  “I have him,” Kerr said a few seconds later. “Keep moving.”

  “Are they using infras?” Claypoole asked.

  Schultz grunted, how could he know? But he thought the observer must be using some sort of infrared lens or filter on his optics—otherwise he wouldn’t be able to observe the Marines. Schultz looked back and saw that the observers didn’t need infrared optics; most of the Marines behind him weren’t carefully stepping between grasses and shrubs—they were making a visible trail through the vegetation.

  Captain Conorado listened in and silently swore. Mike Company was moving in column a klick to Company L’s right, which was why he hadn’t sent flankers along the rise. “Two Actual, this is Six Actual,” he said on the command circuit. “Who do you still have at Delta Zulu?” Second platoon was bringing up the company’s rear and part of it was still at Delta Zulu, the drop zone where the Dragons had let the company off.

  “Six Actual, Two,” Ensign Molina answered immediately. “Two Five, one squad, and”—he checked his UPUD—“one gun team.”

  “Send them to flank the back side of the rise on the right. I want to know what’s there.”

  “Will do, Six.” Molina switched to the platoon command circuit. “You get that, Chway?” he asked.

  “We’re on it,” Staff Sergeant Chway, second platoon’s platoon sergeant said. He had begun moving the half-platoon still in the drop zone looping back as soon as he’d heard Conorado’s order. His idea was to swing beyond the near flank of whoever was behind the rise before approaching them.

  “Everybody keep moving,” Conorado ordered on the company command circuit. “I’ve sent flankers, they’ll let us know what’s there.” He turned to Lance Corporal Escarpo, his comm man, and told him to get an infra feed from the string-of-pearls, or whatever surveillance the navy had of the area.

  “I’m trying for it, sir,” Escarpo said. “There are big gaps in the string-of-pearls coverage.”

  “Keep trying.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Conorado toggled to the battalion circuit and reported the situation to Commander van Winkle. Van Winkle said he’d see if he or Brigadier Sturgeon could goose the navy into getting some infra coverage. Conorado thanked him and signed off, but he knew that unless the navy could simply flip a switch, there was no chance of getting infra coverage in time to do the company any good in the current situation.

  On the point, Schultz kept scanning the rise with his infra and magnifier screens. As far ahead as he could detect, there seemed to be an observer every seventy-five to one hundred meters. He reported every one he saw with a terse, “Up one hundred. Up one-eighty,” or whatever the range was from his current position.

  Conorado listened in, but kept silent. He plotted each position on his map as Schultz reported it. If the point man was right—and Conorado had no reason to believe otherwise—and each known observer was a platoon commander, there had to be an entire battalion on the high ground, waiting for Company L to get too far into the ambush’s killing zone for anybody to be able to back out. He looked along the line of the company’s route; the trail the Marines made through the grass and shrubs was obvious. Even without using his infra screen, he could make out where individual Marines were by the way the vegetation moved. One of the Marines’ major advantages, the virtual invisibility conferred on them by their chameleon uniforms, was negated by the vegetation.

  He looked at his map again. If each plotted position was a platoon commander, the enemy was set in a very tightly packed line, too tight for the Marines to be able to charge across the two hundred meters of prairie and break through them. Buddha’s blue balls, he thought, when the enemy on the rise opens fire, Company L is going to be chewed up before Mike Company can close in and hit the ambush from the rear. Then the Coalition troops will turn about and chew up Mike Company.

  “Oh. My.
God.” Conorado heard Chway’s voice on the command circuit. “They’re almost shoulder to shoulder for more than a klick and a half, maybe two klicks.”

  “Two Five,” Conorado said tightly. He knew that he couldn’t wait for infra images from above. “What weapons do you see?”

  “Six Actual, mostly fléchette rifles. They seem to have one assault gun per platoon unit.”

  “Two Five, can you lay down enfilading fire?”

  “That’s an affirmative, Six.”

  Conorado knew that he didn’t need the infra images, not unless the Coalition had other forces in the area that his Marines hadn’t yet spotted. “Get into position to do so. Let me know when you’re in position, then wait for my command.” But he knew that the Coalition army was on the run, so it was unlikely that this unit had reinforcements nearby.

  “Aye aye, Six.”

  Conorado switched to the all-hands circuit. “On my command, drop to your right and open fire on the rise to the right. Until then, continue moving.” He looked back and saw the tail of the company, less the squad and gun with Chway, was entering the ambush’s killing zone.

  It didn’t take long for second platoon’s Bravo unit to get into position.

  “Six Actual, Two Five. In position,” Chway reported little more than a minute after receiving the order.

  “Now hear this,” Conorado said over the all-hands circuit. “When the flanking element opens fire, everybody go down to the right and use volley fire on the rise.” Then to Chway, “On my mark. One. Two. Three!”

  Fire from the assault gun and ten blasters with Chway erupted into the near end of the enemy line and began racing along it. The nearest Coalition soldiers screamed and died as the plasma bolts burned through them. The next were surprised and failed to return fire before the continuing rain of plasma reached them and they started dying. Farther along the line, many of the soldiers heard fire and began shooting before their officers gave the command. Many but not all, and the hesitation of some saved many of the Marines.