by Paula Guran
“Port Authorities are taking their time processing, sir.”
“Processing?”
“Rakva.”
Although many of the Confederation’s Elder Races took bureaucracy to a fine art, the Rakva reveled in it. Torin, who after twelve years in the Corps wasn’t surprised by much, had once watched a line of the avians patiently filling out forms in triplicate in order to use a species-specific sanitary facility. Apparently the feathers and rudimentary beaks weren’t sufficient proof of species identification.
“They’re insisting that everyone fill out emergency evacuation forms.”
“Oh for the love of God . . . Deal with it.”
Chigma showed teeth—a distinctly threatening gesture from a species that would eat pretty much anything it could fit down its throat and was remarkably adaptable about the later. “Yes, sir.”
“Captain . . . ” Lieutenant Franks’ golden brows drew in and he frowned after the First Sergeant. “Begging your pardon, sir, but a Krai may not be the most diplomatic . . . ”
“Diplomatic?” the captain interrupted. “We’ve got a few thousand civilians to get off this rock before a whole crapload of Others climb right up their butts. If they wanted it done diplomatically, they shouldn’t have called in the Corps.” He paused and shot the lieutenant a frown of his own. “Shouldn’t you be at the first level by now?”
“Sir!”
Torin fell into step at his right shoulder as Franks hurried off the concourse and out onto the road that joined the seven levels of Simunthitir into one continuous spiral. Designed for the easy transportation of ore carriers up to the port, it was also a strong defensive position with heavy gates to close each level off from those below and the layout ensured that Sho’quo Company would maintain the high ground as they withdrew to the port. If not for the certain fact that the Others were traveling with heavy artillery—significantly heavier than their own EM223s—and sufficient numbers to climb to the high ground over the piled bodies of their dead, she’d be thinking this was a highly survivable engagement. Ignoring the possibility that the Others’ air support would get off a lucky drop.
“Well, Staff, it looks like we’ve got the keys to the city. It’s up to us to hold the gates at all costs.”
And provided she could keep Lieutenant Franks from getting them all killed—but that was pretty much business as usual.
“Anything happen while I was gone?”
Sergeant Anne Chou shook her head without taking her attention from the scanner. “Not a thing. Looks like they waited until you got back.”
Torin peered out over the undulating plain but couldn’t see that anything had changed. “What are you getting?”
“Just picked up the leading edge of the unfriendlies but they’re packed too close together to get a clear reading on numbers.”
“Professional opinion?”
The other woman looked over at that and grinned. “One fuck of a lot, Staff.”
“Great.” Torin switched her com to command channel. “Lieutenant, we’ve got a reading on the perimeter.”
“Is their artillery in range?”
“Not yet, sir.” Torin glanced up into a sky empty of all but the distant flashes of the battle going on up above the atmosphere where the vacuum jockeys from both sides kept the other side from controlling the ultimate high ground. “I imagine they’ll let us know.”
“Keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You think he’s up to this?” Anne asked when Torin tongued off her microphone.
“Since the entire plan is that we shoot and back up, shoot and back up, rinse and repeat, I think we’ll be fine.” The lieutenant had to be watched more closely moving forward.
Anne nodded, well aware of the subtext. “Glad to hear it.”
The outer walls of Simunthitir’s lowest level of buildings presented a curved stone face to the world about seven meters high, broken by a single gate. Running along the top of those buildings was a continuous line of battlement fronted by a stone balustrade about a meter and a half high.
Battlements and balustrades, Torin thought as she made her way to the gate. Nothing like getting back to the basics. “Trey, how’s it going?”
The di’Taykan Sergeant glanced up, her hair a brilliant cerulean corona around her head. “She’s packed tight, Staff. We’re just about to fuse the plug.”
They’d stuffed the gate full of the hovercraft used to move people and goods inside the city. Individually, each cart weighed about two hundred kilos, hardly enough to stop even a lackluster assault, but crammed into the gateway—wrestled into position by the heavy gunner’s and their exo-skeletons—and then fused into one solid mass by a few well placed demo charges, the gate would disappear and the city present a solid face to the enemy.
As Trey moved the heavies away, Lance Corporal Sluun moved forward keying the final parameters into his slate.
“First in Go and Blow, eh?” Lieutenant Franks said quietly by Torin’s left shoulder.
“Yes, sir.” Sluun had kicked ass at his TS3 demolition course.
A trio of planes screamed by closely followed by three Marine 774’s keeping up a steady stream of fire. Two of the enemy managed to drop their loads—both missed the city—while the third peeled off in an attempt to engage their pursuers. The entire tableau shrieked out of sight in less than minute.
“I only mention it,” the lieutenant continued when they could hear themselves think again, “because there’s always the chance we could blow not only the gate but a section of the wall as well.”
“Trust in the training, sir. Apparently Sluun paid attention in class.”
“Firing in five . . . ”
“We might want to step back, sir.”
“ . . . four . . . ”
“Trust in the training, Staff?”
“ . . . three . . . ”
“Yes, sir. But there’s no harm in hedging our bets.”
“ . . . two . . . ”
They stopped four meters back.
“ . . . one. Fire in the hole.”
The stones vibrated gently under their feet.
And a moment later . . . “We’ve got a good solid plug, Lieutenant.” Trey’s voice came over the group channel. “They’ll need the really big guns to get through it.”
Right on cue: the distinctive whine of incoming artillery.
This time, the vibrations underfoot where less than gentle.
Four, five, six impacts . . . and a pause.
“Damage?”
“Got a hole into one of the warehouses, Staff.” Corporal Dave Hayman’s voice came over the com. “Demo team’s filling in the hole now.”
“Good.” She tongued off the microphone. “Everything else hit higher up, sir. I imagine we’ve got civilian casualties.”
Frank’s lips thinned. “Why the hell isn’t Arver pulsing their targeting computers?” he demanded grimly.
Shots seven, eight, and nine missed the port entirely.
“I think it took them a moment to get the frequency, sir.”
Ten, eleven, and twelve blew in the air.
Confident that the specialists were doing their jobs, the Marines on the wall ignored the barrage. They all knew there’d be plenty to get excited about later. Electronics were easy for both sides to block, which was why the weapon of choice in the Corps was a KC-7, a chemically operated projectile weapon. Nothing disrupted it but hands-on physical force and the weighted stock made a handy club in a pinch. Torin appreciated a philosophy that expected to get pinched.
Eventually, it would come down to flesh versus flesh. It always did.
As another four planes screamed by, Torin took a look over the front parapet and then turned to look back in over the gate. “Trey, you got any more of those carts down there?”
“Plenty of them, Staff.”
“All right, lets run as many as will fit up here to the top of the wall and send those that don’t fit up a level.”
&n
bsp; “Planning on dropping them on the enemy?” Lieutenant Franks grinned.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh.” Somewhat taken aback, he frowned and one of those remaining shiny patches flared up. “Isn’t dropping scrap on the enemy, I don’t know . . . ”
Torin waited patiently as, still frowning, he searched for the right word.
“UnMarinelike?”
Or perhaps he’d needed the time to make up a new word.
“Look at it this way, sir, if you were them and you thought there was a chance of having two hundred kilos dropped on your head, wouldn’t you be a little hesitant in approaching the wall?”
“I guess I would . . . ”
He guessed. Torin, on the other hand, knew full well that were the situations reversed, Lieutenant Franks would be dying to gallantly charge the port screaming once more into the breach! And since her place was beside him and dying would be the operative word, she had further reason to be happy they were on this side of the wall. If people were going to sing about her, she’d just as soon they sang about long career and a productive retirement.
The Others came over the ridge in a solid line of soldiers and machines, the sound of their approach all but drowning out the scream of the first civilian transport lifting off. Marine flyers escorted it as far as the edge of the atmosphere where the Navy took over and the Marines raced back to face the bomber the Others had sent to the port. One of Lieutenant Arver’s sammies took it out before it had a change to drop its load. The pilot arced around the falling plume of wreckage and laid a contrail off toward the mountains, chased away from the massed enemy by two ships from their air support.
According to Torin’s scanner, these particular soldiers—fighting for a coalition the Confederation referred to as the Others—were mammals; two, maybe three, species of them considering the variant body temperatures. It was entirely possible she had more in common physically with the enemy than she did with at least half of the people she was expected to protect—the Rakva were avian, the Niln reptilian, and both were disproportionately represented among the civilian population of Simunthitir.
The odds were even better that she’d have an easier time making conversation with any one of the approaching enemy than she would with any civilian regardless of species. Find her a senior non-com, and she’d guarantee it. Soldiering was a fairly simple profession after all. Achieve the objective. Get your people out alive.
Granted, the objectives usually differed.
Behind her in the city, in direct counter-point to her thoughts, someone screamed a protest at having to leave behind their various bits of accumulated crap as the remaining civilians on the first level were herded toward the port. It never failed to amaze her how people hung on to the damnedest things when running for their lives. The Others would break into the first level. It was only a question of when.
She frowned at an unlikely reading.
“What is it, Staff Sergeant?”
“I’m not sure . . . ” There were six, no seven, huge inert pieces of something advancing with the enemy. They weren’t living and with no power signature they couldn’t be machinery.
The first of Lieutenant Arver’s mortars fired, locked on to the enemy’s artillery. The others followed in quick succession, hoping to get in a hit before their targeting scanners were scrambled in turn. A few Marines cheered as something in the advancing horde blew. From the size of the explosion, at least one of the big guns had been taken out—along with the surrounding soldiers.
“They’re just marching into an entrenched position,” Franks muttered. “This won’t be battle, this will be slaughter.”
“I doubt they’ll just keep marching, sir.” Almost before she finished speaking, a dozen points flared on her scanner and she switched her com to group . . . “It’s about to get noisy, people!” . . . and dropped behind one of the carts. Lieutenant Franks waited until the absolute last moment before joining her. She suspected he was being an inspiration to the platoon. Personally, she always felt it was more inspiring to have your lieutenant in one piece, but hey, that was her.
The artillery barrage before the battle—any battle—had one objective. Do as much damage to the enemy as possible. Their side. The other side. All a soldier could do was wait it out and hope they didn’t get buried in debris.
“Keep them from sneaking forward, people!” It wasn’t technically necessary to yell, the helmet coms were intelligent enough to pick up her voice and block the sound of the explosions in the air, the upper city, and out on the plains but there was a certain satisfaction in yelling that she had no intention of giving up. She pointed her KC-7 over the edge of the wall. “Don’t worry about the artillery—they’re aiming at each other not at you!”
“Dubious comfort, Staff!”
Torin grinned at the Marine who’d spoken. “It’s the only kind I offer, Haysole!”
Ears and turquoise hair clamped tight against his head, the di’Taykan returned her grin. “You’re breaking my heart!”
“I’ll break something else if you don’t put your damned helmet on!”
The di’Taykans were believed to be the most enthusiastically non-discriminating sexual adventurers in known space and Private Haysole di’Stenjic seemed to want to enthusiastically prove he was more di’Taykan than most. While allowances were made within both branches of the military for species specific behavior, Haysole delighted in stepping over the line—although in his defense he often didn’t seem to know just where the line was. He’d made corporal twice and was likely never going to get there again unless casualties in the Corps got much, much worse. Given that he was the stereotypical good-humored, well-liked, bad boy of the platoon, Torin was always amazed when he came out of an engagement in one piece.
“Staff.” Corporal Hollice’s voice sounded in her helmet. His fireteam anchored the far end of the wall. “Picking up unfriendlies approaching our sector.”
Torin glanced over at the lieutenant who was obviously—obvious to her anyway—fighting the urge to charge over to that sector and face the unfriendlies himself, mano a mano. “Mark your targets people, the official number seems to be one fuck of a lot and we’re not carrying unlimited ammo.”
“Looks like some of them are running four on the floor. Fuck, they can really motor!”
“What?”
“Uh, sorry Staff, old human saying. One group has four legs and they’re running really fast.”
“Thank you. I’m guessing they’re also climbers or they wouldn’t be first . . . ” And then she was shouting in the sudden silence. “ . . . at the wall,” she finished a little more quietly. “Stay sharp.”
“Artillery seems to have finished smashing things up,” Franks murmured as he cautiously stood and took a look around.
The two lower levels were still more or less intact, the upper levels not so much. The question was, had the port survived. And the answer seemed to be yes as a Marine escort screamed in and another civilian carrier lifted off.
The distinct sound of a KC-7 turned Torin’s attention back to the plains.
“Our turn,” Franks murmured. “Our turn to stand fast and say you shall not pass.”
Had that rhymed? “Sir?”
His cheeks darkened slightly. “Nothing.”
“Yes, sir.”
All Marines qualified on the KC-7. Some of them were better shots than others but every single one of them knew how to make those shots count. The problem was, for every one of the enemy shot, another three raced forward to take their place.
“I hate this kind of thing.” Franks aimed and fired. “There’s no honor in it. They charge at us, we shoot them. It’s . . . ”
“Better than the other way around?” Torin suggested.
He shrugged. Aimed. Fired. “I guess so.”
Torin knew so.
The enemy wore what looked like a desert camouflage that made them difficult to see against the dead brown grasses on the plains. Sho’quo company was in urban camouflage—
black and gray and a dirty white—that hopefully made them difficult to see against the walls of Simunthitir. Most were on foot but there were a scattering of small vehicles in the line. Some the heavy gunners took out—the remains of these were used as cover at varying distances from the wall. Some kept coming.
Torin pulled the tab on a demo charge, counted to four, leaned over the wall and dropped it. The enemy vehicle blew big, the concussion rattling teeth on the wall and windows behind them in the port. “I suspect they were going to set a sapper charge.”
“Odds are good, sir.”
“Why didn’t you drop a cart on them?”
“Thought we’d best leave that to the end, sir. Get a few carts stacked up down there and they’ll be able to use them to get up the . . . Damn!”
The quadrupeds were climbers and they were, indeed, fast. One moment there were only Marines on the wall, the next there was a large soldier with four heavily clawed legs and two arms holding a weapon gripping the edge of the parapet. One of the heavies went down but before the quad could fire again, Lieutenant Franks charged forward and swung his weapon so that the stock slammed in hard between the front legs and then shot it twice in the air as it fell backwards off the wall.
He flushed slightly as Marines cheered and almost looked as though he was about to throw himself off the wall after it to finish the job. “I was closest,” he explained, returning to Torin’s side.
He wasn’t. She hid a smile. Aimed. Fired. Hid a second smile as the lieutenant sighed and did the same. He wanted deeds of daring and he got target practice instead. Life was rough. Better than the alternative though, no matter how little the lieutenant might think so. Do or die might have more of a ring to it but she much preferred do and live and did her damnedest to ensure that was what happened for the Marines under her care.
Another civilian carrier lifted off. So far they were three for three.
“Artillery seems to have neutralized each other,” Franks murmured, sweeping his scanner over the plain. “That’s some nice shooting by Arver’s . . . What the hell?”
With the approaching ground troops dug in or pulling back, Torin slaved her scanner to the lieutenant’s. The inert masses she’d spotted earlier were being moved forward—no, pushed forward, their bulk shielding the pushers from Marine fire.
