After graduating from the Academy and reporting to base stations and other outposts, personal relationships were tolerated but only between those of proximate rank and in separate chains of command. One of the prime functions of squadron support officers was to monitor and, when necessary, alter behavior that detracted from mission performance.
To date, Tyko’s interpersonal relationships had been unremarkable. Whether it was training or some nullifying supplements in the food — as Henrik, among others in the squadron, believed — Tyko thought of the other pilots as his sisters and brothers. He was closer to some more than others, like his squadron mates, but none before generated the same visceral reaction as the girl just inches from him on the quantam court.
She had a lean face with bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle and high cheekbones that were reddened slightly from playing. There were a few freckles on either side of a nose that was straight and perhaps a bit too small for her face. Her hair was thick and pulled back although some strands were stuck to her forehead by sweat.
As Tyko watched, captivated, the girl’s eyelids narrowed slightly and a small smile formed on one corner of her lips. She seemed to move in slow motion, her arms rising and then his paralysis disappeared with the sound of the quantam thudding into her hands. Tyko started bringing his arms up to block but in a flash the girl leaned to her left and pushed past, careful not to touch him as avoidable contact would end her team’s possession.
He turned to follow, the hot flush of embarrassment on his cheeks, but the sound of the quantam slamming through the end-board told him he was too late.
Hanging his head to avoid the angry stares of his squadmates, Tyko glanced at the score/time display. With less than twenty seconds remaining it would be difficult to work the quantam into position to score the six points needed to tie the match. They gave it their all, but the buzzer sounded just moments before Henrik’s desperation throw bounced off the end-board.
The teams lined up to exchange handshakes and with eyes down Tyko numbly and briefly touched the hands thrust at him. He had no way of knowing which hand belonged to the girl, but walking to the locker room he glanced back and saw her surrounded by celebrating teammates.
To his surprise, she was staring at him.
Blood(i)ed
Two weeks after arriving at Operating Post Tango-5 on Neptec-2, Sergeant Siengha was set to lead half her platoon out on an ambush. Standing next to the combat transport as soldiers from First Squad milled around the landing pad, she noted with satisfaction the five newest troops in her command were part of the group. Their armor was still noticeably unmarred after two weeks of outpost duty — standing perimeter watches and work details for housekeeping and improving defenses — but soon enough that would change.
Siengha rubbed her eyes and leaned back against the transport. As soon as the platoon arrived at OP Tango-5 she and Lieutenant N’dele were ordered to the Tactical Operations Center for a mission orientation briefing while the troops were directed to a berthing compartment to stow their gear. Inside the Ops Center the Top Sergeant handed her a data pad with watch and meal rotations for her people, and daily personnel requirements for work details; as Papa Sierra she would ensure everyone was where they needed to be.
Each squad was given a tour of the outpost the day of arrival and stood a perimeter watch supervised by soldiers from other platoons. Then they were on their own. Siengha would have preferred more time to settle in, but Third Platoon was at Tango-5 to take the place of a unit decimated by a Vyp ambush and everyone else at the post had been pulling extra duty to cover the gap. She knew the experienced members of her platoon would get the most important information from the old-timers at the post, but worried about the five new soldiers.
Siengha believed it best to scrub the newness off green troops as soon as possible, and that meant going eye-to-eye with the enemy in the field — not standing a perimeter watch. At first these watches would be stressful for the newbies but as the days went by they would grow more comfortable with them and that could be their undoing outside the outpost’s walls. She felt so strongly about getting them blooded, as it was called, that at the orientation briefing just minutes after arriving at Tango-5 she volunteered her platoon for the next patrol outside the walls.
Her offer was met by icy stares from the officers and senior non-coms surrounding the major in charge of the post (who had been the operations officer until the Vyps downed the transport carrying both the colonel in command and her executive officer). Ignoring the others, whose soldiers were standing extra watches, the major paused a moment before replying.
“I appreciate wanting to get your new people blooded, Sergeant Siengha. I’d do the same if I was in your position. But the priority for the post is getting your platoon into the rotation, so I’ve got to say no.”
Siengha nodded and thanked the major, coming away from that first meeting with a positive impression of the officer whose decisions could well decide whether she lived or died at the outpost. He seemed tactically competent and a good leader, and she had seen more than her share of the other side of those qualities during the war. The junior officers and non-coms at Tango-5 were more of a mixed bag, but that was true everywhere.
On the landing pad, she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned her head just far enough to see a thumbs-up sign from a one of the aircrew. Nodding slightly, she pushed her shoulders and back off of the transport.
“LOAD UP!”
Although the same model as the ship that brought them to Tango-5, the transport was a combat variant which meant there were no seats. Long bars were attached to the deck and bulkheads to provide handholds, but otherwise the passenger compartment was empty. Siengha stood near the combat hatch and counted heads as the soldiers climbed in. The middle of the compartment quickly filled as the first men and women squatted or flopped down around the deck handholds, leaving those later in the queue to squeeze past or take spots near the large opening at the rear of the transport.
Siengha recognized the logic: in a contested landing the first and last out of the transport faced the greatest danger.
Her count complete, she tapped the aircrewman’s shoulder and he toggled the switch to close the hatch. The sergeant noted without surprise the five replacement soldiers were clustered around her next to the exit. One by one, she began to check their equipment, pulling on straps and belts, and probing armor seals. The transport jumped up from the landing pad as she finished checking the second one, causing the green soldiers to hurriedly grab for handhold bars while Siengha easily shifted her weight to compensate for the movement. Grabbing the next soldier in line by the shoulder, she pulled the young man away from the bulkhead to check his load.
“S-sergeant.” He swallowed hard and Siengha knew doing so left his throat sore as there wasn’t much moisture to ease the passage. “I, uh, don’t know if … I mean, ah, I don’t think I—”
She jabbed a finger into his face. “That’s right, Haapala, don’t think. Leave that to those of us who know what’s going on. Just do what you’re told.”
“That goes for all of you,” she added, turning to take in the whole group. “Remember your training, do what you’re told. Keep your eyes and ears open. Follow orders. You’ll be fine.”
She went back to Haapala and continued her inspection. After pulling a carrypack strap to tighten it, she reached up and tapped the front of his helmet before moving to the next in line. Siengha knew the fear was burning in their guts; there was nothing anyone could say to make it go away. In a fight they would overcome the fear or they wouldn’t. Either way, death or injury was a possibility.
For the next half-hour the transport executed a series of combat approaches at various locations, dipping into small valleys or behind hills to hover over the ground for seconds before jumping back up and roaring off. The terrain around the outpost was hilly and arid, with sparse ground vegetation and few trees.
The humans knew they were under constant surveillance by the
Vyps, so deploying a ground force outside the perimeter required deception to prevent the soldiers from being overwhelmed shortly after touchdown. After Siengha’s half-platoon was inserted the transport would continue simulating approaches for another twenty minutes before returning to the outpost.
Their landing was unopposed and the soldiers quickly formed up into a column and marched from the insert site. They changed directions twice before heading toward a small valley to the east of the outpost. Their objective was to set an ambush along a path suspected of being used by the Vyps to infiltrate observer teams near the post’s perimeter.
Drones and high-alt reconnaissance showed the aliens used several routes to move their forces in and out — they, too, played the deception game — but the path Siengha and her group were targeting was deemed to have the highest amount of activity by the intelligence section at the outpost.
If the ambush was successful, Siengha was authorized to engage any alien observer teams she could locate near the perimeter. Otherwise, they were to fall back to an extract point for pick up by transport. Although they’d never been on this ground before, she and the squad leader developed the ambush plan using hi-res images and vid from drones. Before boarding the transports the squad gathered in the outpost mess hall where Siengha briefed the plan using the images, assigning each soldier a specific location and tasking.
At the ambush site, the squad split into three teams with Siengha leading a fire team to the spot designated as the kill zone. Her team quickly set up directional/remote detonation mines, called DRDs, in an L-shape to frame half of an imaginary rectangle over ground the Vyps were expected to traverse. Half the DRDs were angled so their shrapnel would fan out at four feet above ground level; the others were set to one foot. After placing the DRDs the team moved into positions among rocks at the base of two hills where the valley ended.
Led by Corporal Miroslav, the squad leader, the second group took an overwatch position fifty feet behind and slightly below the longest line of DRDs. Some hid among rock scree at the base of a hill and the rest dug shallow fighting positions in open ground. The squad’s final fire team was placed in a support position on a small spur rising above the valley.
Once in place, the soldiers covered themselves with color-shiftable tarps, programmed at the outpost from the same pics used to plan the ambush, and settled in to wait.
Hours passed and the light faded as their location on Neptec-2 rotated away from the system’s star. Siengha enabled the night vision feature on her faceshield and sipped from her water tube. Some of her soldiers had installed food tubes containing protein paste, but she was not much for eating before a fight. She flexed her limbs and neck frequently to maintain circulation and occasionally got on the platoon net to remind the others to do the same.
One of the lessons Command learned after the war’s first battles was the need for two-way communication on tactical nets. Whenever one of her soldiers spoke or made a noise loud enough to activate the system the name appeared on Siengha’s faceshield. It didn’t surprise her in the least to see the five new replacements having the toughest time dealing with the wait. Haapala especially had trouble moderating his breathing, but eventually even he settled in.
* * * *
“Contact.” She recognized the calm voice of Private First Class Sopheap, leader of the support fire team posted on the spur, without needing the digital display. More than six hours had passed since the ambush was put in place and it was the darkest point in the daily time cycle.
Ignoring the small noises made by the squad as they came to full readiness, Siengha studied the greenish outlines of twelve Vyptellian soldiers steadily moving toward her and the killzone. As she expected, the smaller aliens were to the front, with the largest of the dozen, at least a foot taller and likely their sergeant, about a third of the way from the rear. Command long ago realized Vyps continued to physically grow for at least a year after reaching military-service age, which meant at least half the group walking into the kill zone were likely inexperienced soldiers.
Siengha counted on this, which is why the DRD firing switch was in her hands. With their vast numbers and preference for mass assaults, she knew the aliens who survived and moved into command positions would put their greenest soldiers out front to absorb attacks. From long experience she knew the trick with ambushes was to have the nerve to wait until the most experienced Vyps would be cut down, even if it meant some aliens escaped initial harm.
After the DRDs fired, the fire team with her would move in to finish off any Vyps that survived the mine blasts or were outside the kill zone. They’d use blades to keep the noise down and ensure no friendly-fire incidents. Siengha placed her five new soldiers, the ones to be blooded, in this group.
As the first of the Vyp group entered the kill zone, several names popped up on Siengha’s faceshield as members of the squad took in deep breaths. Some, like Haapala, appeared a second and third time as those soldiers struggled with their fright. In contrast, she was completely calm.
In the third year of the war Siengha served with an older sergeant whose favorite saying was: What happens, happens. When she questioned this philosophy his response was a wink and wintery smile. But one night, after a sharp fight, the sergeant began talking as the two of them shared a cup of tea.
“Always do everything you can to prepare, private. Always. Plan ‘til your eyes cross, train ‘til you drop, load the right gear in the right amount.” She found herself nodding slowly as he continued, “Find the right ground to fight on or if you can’t then do your best to prepare the ground you got. Put your people in the right places with the right stuff, with the best plan you can come up with.”
Then the grizzled sergeant’s voice grew softer and one corner of his mouth turned down. “But know this: in the end, no matter how ready you are … what happens, happens. Best prepared doesn’t always win.”
The first three Vyps walked through the short line of DRDs facing them without noticing the mines. “Stand by,” Siengha quietly said over the net as the last of the aliens entered the killzone.
At that moment the fourth Vyp in line suddenly stopped, its head clearly angled downward. The DRDs were small and hidden among the rocks and bushes, and Siengha was counting on the less experienced aliens at the front to not notice the deadly objects at their feet. But this one evidently had, and as the Vyp straightened and began to turn back toward its leader Siengha touched her finger to the control pad of the DRD firing switch.
Half the DRDs fired as one, filling the small valley with a sharp crackling noise and a flash of bluish light. Small hardened needles scythed through the Vyp formation at high speed, felling the aliens in the kill zone. Four seconds later the remaining DRDs fired, shredding low brush and supine Vyp bodies.
Four Vyps survived the blasts. The three that walked through the killzone before the mines fired had no time to react before the assault team with Siengha jumped out at them with swinging assault rifles and stabbing blades. The fourth Vyp, the one that discovered the hidden mines, had one leg amputated by the initial DRD blast and lived through the second only because its torso fell forward, out of the kill zone.
Siengha noted with satisfaction this alien was killed by Haapala.
The sergeant watched from her position among the rocks as the assault team examined the dead aliens. Not too many years earlier it had been her out there, rushing from cover to kill the enemy with her blade and then checking the bodies. She didn’t miss that, exactly, but some days being Papa Sierra she longed for the simplicity of it.
Had she been a grunt, though, Siengha would have died with the assault team and most of the other soldiers in the squad when the kill zone switched sides.
There was almost no warning, just a sudden series of loud but strangely hollow metallic sounds which she knew came from Vyp projectiles. Calling out a warning on the net, Siengha threw herself to the rocky ground as the small valley filled with a bright greenish light that disrupted her night visi
on. She didn’t look up — didn’t need to and wouldn’t even if there was time — as razor-sharp darts shredded any human flesh not shielded by rocks.
Later, after examining drone and surveillance vid, the intelligence types at the outpost would determine the Vyp sergeant had pre-registered a cannonade fire mission using its own position as the aim point. They were unsure if this indicated a new tactic and whether the alien survived the DRD blasts long enough to call in the cannonade or if the fire mission was automated, somehow tied into the Vyp’s health status.
Rising unhurt from the rocks near the mouth of the valley, Siengha knew only this: she needed to collect any survivors and move out before the Vyps arrived.
What happens, happens.
Ribbons and Funerals
The old woman trudged up the hill to the mine office with her head down. Short and thick through the body, at sixty-seven she was in better shape than a few of the teenagers she supervised on the evening shift. Long gray hair pulled back into a high ponytail rhythmically slapped against her shoulders with each step.
As a girl she was considered quite attractive and the years living in the chilly, wind-swept mountains north of Xhialgong’s upper-third meridian mellowed but did not completely erase the features that drew men and women to her.
She walked on the left side of the street, avoiding the deep shadows cast by rows of tall apartment buildings to her right. The sun was low in the sky that time of day and she savored the warmth on her face and hands. Glancing up at the buildings, she saw row upon row of dark windows. In each was a card with an orange triangle indicating a family member serving in the military; most windows displayed several triangles.
Green Zulu Five One: And Other Stories From the Vyptellian War Page 4
