Direct Fire #4 Drop Trooper

by Rick Partlow

  Well, that was probably hubris, but I had to give it to her, it made even my cynical soul stir with a bit of ooh-rah.

  “We call it Point Barber.”

  Red icons jumped out at us from the inner system, clustered around a habitable world, the second out from the primary star. It had twin moons, captured asteroids by the size and look of them, and each had yet more of the glowing red, which I knew meant weapons emplacements.

  “As you can see, the whole system is heavily defended, both with fixed weapons platforms and the largest fleet we are likely to see in any battle of this conflict, larger than what we’ll find at the Tahni homeworld. Because the enemy knows the same thing we do: we have to take Point Barber to win this war. Their numbers and type of their ground defenses are unknown as of yet, but we expect them to be at least as bad as what we found on Port Harcourt, and probably worse.”

  Another touch on her ‘link and a wave of blue appeared on top of the red.

  “Which is why the Commonwealth is holding nothing back.”

  I saw the largest of the blue icons and my hand shot up, almost of its own accord. I don’t know how she saw it, but she did.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” Her voice was cold, as if she really hadn’t wanted to be interrupted and least of all by me.

  “Ma’am, are there eight cruisers on that display?” I asked.

  “There are, Lt. Alvarez.” She smiled, and a bit of the chill went out of her tone.

  “I thought we only had five!”

  “That’s probably what the Tahni think, as well, Lt. Alvarez. But the shipyards have not been idle while we fought our war at ground level.” Oh, good Lord, that sounded like a line she’d written for a presentation to the general staff. “We will have basically the entire fleet, which is another reason for the security surrounding this operation. If the Tahni were to find out we’ve left the Solar System undefended, this could prove to be the worst disaster in human history. That’s the gamble we’re taking, and we’re throwing everything into the pot. We’ve received reinforcements from the Training Brigade at Inferno and we will be striking Point Barber with six full battalions of Drop-Troopers.” She shrugged, as if the next part wasn’t as important. “As well as five battalions of Force Recon.”

  The image shifted at her manipulation and we were looking at a view from far above a massive city, not nearly as big as Trans-Angeles or Capital City, but as large as Tartarus, the military base on Inferno, or even Hesperides, the capital on Eden, Inferno’s more temperate twin sister. But the size seemed almost irrelevant compared to the strangeness of the design, the shape of the buildings, the arrangement of the streets and green belts. It looked as if it had been designed by a toddler savant, who somehow understood how to operate an AI architectural engineering program without actually grasping why humans used buildings or how they should be organized. Except for the spaceport, the design of which was dictated by practicality, since cargo shuttles and landers needed a large, flat area to put down and a certain sort and size of machinery to unload them.

  And one other area, catty-corner to the spaceport, where the structures were boxy and ugly in their stark pragmatism. Deflector dishes surrounded the city, giving it full coverage from overhead bombardment, though I wouldn’t have wanted to live in the clusters of what looked like communal housing at the outskirts. Probably where the females had their enclaves, if our intelligence analysts were right.

  “This is the closest image of the capital city on Point Barber that we’ve been able to acquire from Scout Service drones before Tahni vessels detected and destroyed them. The city has a Tahni name, too, but we’re calling it Target Delta, or Deltaville if you find that too impersonal. If you’ll note the square structures near the spaceport, you’ve probably already guessed that these are their military barracks.” The optical-spectrum image switched to a thermal filter and the buildings lit up in various shades of yellow, orange and red. “There’s a lot of energy signatures in these buildings.” She raised an eyebrow. “A lot. And that could mean older, second-tier forces with tanks and armored vehicles, or it could mean the largest collection of High Guard battlesuits and fire-support mechs we’ve ever seen. Together with the sheer number of deflector dishes and four separate fusion reactor power plants to feed them, this will be a ground battle until we clear the ground.”

  The deflectors and the thermal readings that I assumed were fusion reactors morphed into wire-drawing, each lit up red on the screen.

  “Our targets will be the deflectors and the fusion reactors which power them. Our battalion will be split into four parts during this operation. Bravo, Charlie, and Echo will each be assigned one of the deflector dishes and the anti-aircraft batteries surrounding them. Alpha and Delta will be leading a strike on the fusion reactor connected to those deflectors, together with a full company of Force Recon. You’ll hold the enemy armor off until the Force Recon units can take down the reactor.” Her eyebrow quirked upward. “And yes, I am aware those missions are redundant, and yes, it is because we don’t expect both of them to succeed in the face of opposition we expect. Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t bullshit you. There will be heavy casualties. Some of you will not be coming back from this battle. Now is not the time to indulge in petty, personal differences. Put that shit behind you and pull together, because we need each other now more than ever.”

  I grunted, feeling like that had been a swipe directly at Cronje and me and I wondered how many other people got it.

  She swiped her hand across her ‘link and the hologram faded away as if it had never been.

  “Point Barber is a big planet, but most of the ground defenses are clustered around the capital, Deltaville. The Tahni aren’t big on decentralization, and they figure, rightly to some extent, that gathering all their forces in one place will mean we have to go there to meet them. Conversely, this also means that taking this one city is the key to the success of the invasion.” She held up a hand as if she’d sensed a question was about to be asked. “And before someone brings it up, yes, the high command has considered bypassing this planet and going straight on to Tahn-Skyyiah, and no, they aren’t going to. Why? Complicated question involving morale, alien psychology, and a bunch of other things above my pay grade. It’s not our concern. We have a job to do, and we’re going to do it.”

  “We should just drop a damned rock on the bunch of them like the bugs they are.”

  Cronje. He’d said it way too loud, not like an aside to another Marine that I’d just happened to overhear, but like a challenge to Voss…and to me. I felt his stare boring into me, but I didn’t bother to look up at him. It was what he wanted.

  He wasn’t through, either. I think Voss would have ignored him too if he’d just shut up right then. But Cronje was Cronje, and shutting up wasn’t in his genetic code.

  “I don’t mind dying to kill these bastards, but no Marine should die trying to save them.”

  Now I did look up. I couldn’t help myself, the same way I’d stared at drunks wandering down the street outside our house at night back in Tijuana, knowing they were going to trip or crash into a wall and yet unable to look away. He was still focused on me, though his words had obviously been projected at Colonel Voss.

  “You have your orders,” Voss said, her voice a gavel falling, and she might have been addressing all of us, but she was staring daggers at Cronje. “Follow them or you’ll be replaced by someone who can.”

  The blinking icon on my ‘link begged for my attention, but I resisted its temptation, giving into the lethargy that kept me in my bunk when I really should have been getting ready for tomorrow’s simulation runs. I knew what it was. The notification on the screen told me that. I’d received an InStell message while we were on Port Harcourt, but it hadn’t been cleared through the Fleet censors until we’d Transitioned. Now it waited impatiently to be opened and I just wasn’t sure I wanted to know who it was from.

  There were a vanishing small number of people who knew who the hell I was and cared
enough to send an expensive transmission bouncing between relay satellites from one system to another via wormholes and Transitioning starships. It might have been one of the Marines from my platoon at OCS, or it might have been Trent, my roommate at Armor School. And they were all good people, but I wasn’t in the mood for a long “hey buddy, how you doing?” message telling me how they were going to use their separation bonus on escort services and a brand new Sport Flyer when they got out after the war.

  I didn’t want to talk to anyone but Vicky, and Vicky wasn’t talking.

  “Fuck it,” I murmured aloud.

  I shared the cabin with William Cano, Fourth Platoon leader, but he was out with Kovacs, finding something illicit to drink, which was both easier and harder as an officer. Easier because you could get away with it, harder because you couldn’t let the enlisted know you were getting away with it.

  I touched the blinking icon on the screen, then cast the message to the big display on the cabin bulkhead across from the bunks. Dak Shepherd’s image appeared and I sat up, almost gasping. I hadn’t seen the man nor heard from him since Brigantia. I’d been a newly-minted corporal at the time, made a team leader for my sins so I could learn some responsibility for others. Then everyone in my fire team and half the company had died in the drop and I’d wound up stranded in enemy territory with no suit, no weapons, no support, nothing but an acute case of agoraphobia.

  Dak had found me and taken me back to the civilian resistance against the Tahni occupation, and I’d met Maria, his daughter. She’d been twenty years older than me, widowed, her teenaged daughter lost along with her husband during the Tahni invasion, and she had no reason to feel anything but disdain for a city boy who could barely walk outside without having a panic attack. But she’d befriended me, shown me compassion, a human connection I’d been missing. And she might have saved my soul.

  I couldn’t save her. She’d died in the resistance attack to take down the deflector shield and allow the Marines to land. I’d almost died, too, and when I’d woken up in the hospital to find Dak waiting for me, I wished I had. But he hadn’t blamed me for her death. Instead, he’d offered me a home. He’d founded the colony and he wanted me to have a place to go back to if I lived through this war.

  I hadn’t talked to him since, not because I didn’t want to, but because I still didn’t know what to say to the man. Should I tell him I found someone? That if I returned to Brigantia, I’d be bringing a replacement for his daughter? Should I tell him I’d gotten revenge for Maria? That I’d killed more Tahni than he’d ever seen on his world? She hadn’t wanted revenge for her lost family, she’d wanted freedom for her neighbors, and she’d died for it. I doubt she would have cared, and I knew he wouldn’t.

  I touched an arrow-shaped button and the recording played.

  “Heya, Cam,” Dak said, his voice as rough and raspy as I remembered. “I hope this finds you well.” He snorted and pulled off his brimmed hat, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Hell, I hope it finds you alive. The official government net says you are, but you know as well as I do, they probably don’t tell us about half the casualties you get.”

  That was the truth. Policy was that casualty figures weren’t released publicly until the next-of-kin had been notified in person, which could take weeks or even months, depending on where they lived.

  “But assuming I ain’t wasting my breath, I called because, well, it’s been too long. I saw on your file in the government site that you’re an officer now.” He smiled broadly, the expression sending the deep lines beside his mouth and eyes into sharp relief. “I guess that means you’ve gotten over that problem with trusting people.”

  I chuckled.

  “Well, about that…,” I murmured, suddenly wishing with all my heart that I could actually talk to the old man and not just pretend.

  “I knew you would,” he went on, nodding. “You have too much to offer to spend your life closed inside your shell, keeping the world out. That’s no life for a man. It’s no life for me. The real reason I’m calling you is that, I’m getting married.”

  It was almost as if he’d seen my mouth drop open, because he laughed at just the right time.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m an old dog and I didn’t think I’d ever learn any new tricks, but Hannah and I, we just sort of…got comfortable together. And my point being, if there’s hope for me, if I can start over again, then you can….” He shook his head, searching for the right word. “…start. I don’t know what you’re going through, but whatever it is, however bad it gets, don’t let it undo the good you’ve done. You can get through this and you can have a life when it’s over. It’s what Maria would have wanted for you. And if that life isn’t here, just make sure it’s somewhere you can call home.” He reached out and cut the recording.

  That was Dak. He’d said what he had to say and wasn’t interesting in blathering on afterward like most people would. Most people didn’t know how to say goodbye. I didn’t turn the screen off, just left his image up there. It was a comfort, not so much the words he’d said, but the thought that there was someone out there who knew me that well and still cared about me.

  Home, he’d said. He wanted me to have a place I could call home. But was home a place, or was it the people there? If I went back to Tijuana and found our old house, assuming someone hadn’t already occupied it, it would have been nothing but a collection of mud and brick and wood without Momma and Poppa and Anton.

  I don’t know how long I sat there staring through his picture into the infinity on the other side of it, but only the knock on the hatch stirred me from the fugue. I blinked, unsure for a moment if I’d actually heard anything or if it was a waking dream, but the knock repeated. I pushed myself up from the bunk and opened the hatch, feeling a bit annoyed at whoever it was for not simply announcing their presence over the intercom.

  It was Vicky.

  “Hi,” I said, stumbling over the word. “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” she said, her expression grim. “Can I come in?”

  I stepped back from the hatchway and motioned her inside, then gave in to the paranoid urge to check the passageway behind her before I shut the door. She paced into the center of the compartment, arms folded over her chest.

  “What’s wrong, Vick?” I asked, wanting to touch her, wanting to wrap my arms around her but feeling a barrier between us I was afraid to broach.

  “Cronje is insane.” She turned on me as if she were making an accusation, though at least I knew now the anger wasn’t directed at me. “He’s ranting and raving and calling me a traitor in front of the other officers, and Freddy isn’t saying a damned thing to contradict him, either. I thought you two were friends.”

  “I thought we were, too.” I leaned against the bulkhead, in one of the few spots not taken up by fold-down furniture. “I gotta be honest, Vicky, I’m not sure who my friends are anymore.”

  She reacted as if I’d slapped her, with a moment’s shock followed by instantaneous anger.

  “You told me to stay away from you till this blew over,” she reminded me.

  “It doesn’t look like it’s going to.” I rubbed at my eyes, a dull ache developing behind them. “And we’re about to drop into more shit than any of us have seen before, if you believe Colonel Voss.”

  “Oh, what the fuck does she know?” Vicky waved a hand in dismissal. “She hasn’t fired a shot in anger this whole war. She started it as a staff officer and got her promotion to battalion commander because of her connections at Brigade Staff.”

  “I hadn’t heard that,” I admitted.

  She sneered. “That’s because your company commander doesn’t get drunk and blather in front of his officers. Anyway, you’re not wrong. It’s not going away. Cronje is livid that Brigade forced him to drop the charges against you. He’s mad at Freddy, too, for getting him into this mess, and Freddy’s mad at me because I’m not going to throw you under the bus, but I think even he’s beginning to see the problems w
ith Cronje.” She blew out a breath. “The bottom line is, I’m angry and I have the same bad feeling you do about this drop and I don’t want to go into it angry at you, because I love you.”

  The words were a passcode, a key to the barriers that seemed to have grown between us over the last week and I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, all the negative emotions that had built up inside me turned into something else now.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling away but tugging me along with her by my hand.

  “Where?” I asked, shaking my head.

  She grinned. “My bunkmate is a Force Recon Lieutenant and she’s got a thing with the Iwo Jima’s junior Navigation Officer. We’ll have the compartment to ourselves for the night.”

  I followed, ignoring the nagging guilt. I should have been getting ready for the morning, but in the moment, nothing else seemed more important.

  10

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Bang-Bang hissed.

  I don’t think he realized he was on the open platoon frequency, but I doubt he would have cared if he had. This was the closest I had ever come to shitting my pants from fear, and we hadn’t even launched from the Iwo Jima.

  “What is it, sir?” Majid asked, his voice tentative, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “What’s happening out there?”

  I had to remind myself that most junior NCO’s didn’t know the tricks I’d learned about accessing the Fleet tactical feed, and I wondered if I should tell him what Bang-Bang and I were seeing or just keep him in the dark. Then it might come as a surprise when he died, which I heard made it hurt less.

  Because I knew with a more concrete certainty than I’d ever experienced before that we were going to die before we got anywhere near that fucking planet.

  “Just a lot of ships, Majid,” I lied.

  I imagine if I’d just been looking at the optical feed from the drop-ship, it wouldn’t have been as bad. Most of the details of a space battle are invisible to the naked eye, or even a camera with infrared and thermal filters. The Fleet tactical feed included lidar, radar, spectral analysis and gravimetric sensor readings, using the effects of moving mass on the Transition Lines within the system to build a picture of what was happening light-seconds or even light-minutes away before said light had a chance to reach us.