Starfist - 14 - Double Jeopardy

by Dan Cragg

  “How big is the camp?”

  “Looks like platoon size. Hey, that hopper that picked up the patrol, I don’t see it anywhere.”

  “All right, hold your position.” Fassbender contacted the flankers and the reinforcement lieutenants, telling them to halt in place and take defensive positions, and for the lieutenants to join him.

  Fassbender gave Lieutenants Crabler and Zamenik a hard look when they joined him. The lieutenants looked surly.

  “There’s a Confederation outpost up ahead. I should send you two in with a white flag, you know. It was your men who fired first and told the Marines we’re hostile, so if the Marines have a fire-on-sight order, they should be shooting at you and yours, not at me and mine.” He took a deep breath. “But that would be abrogating my responsibility as commander. I’m going in under a white flag, and I expect you to keep your men under control. No firing unless I order it. Do you understand?”

  “What if they kill you before you give the order to open fire?” Crabler asked defiantly.

  “Well then, I won’t have given the order to open fire, will I? Keep your men in place here. Do not move forward until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Zamenik said reluctantly.

  “Yes what?”

  Zamenik shot him an angry look. “Yes, sir!”

  He looked at Crabler.

  “I understand, sir.”

  “I hope you do. I’m taking those three trigger-happy people of yours. They can all carry white flags. Now return to your platoons—and remember my orders. And obey them!”

  Captain Fassbender had the three men going with him leave their weapons with Sergeant Vodnik and the point element. He left his sidearm as well. Each of them carried a piece of white cloth. They stepped into the open and began walking toward the Marine outpost, holding their open hands out and to the side.

  “Somebody’s coming!” PFC Gray shouted from his perch on the sentry tower.

  “Where? How many?” Sergeant Ratliff shouted back.

  Gray examined the distant men through his helmet’s magnifier screen. “Looks like four. I can’t see any weapons. They’re waving something white.”

  Ratliff clambered up the tower to take a look himself. After verifying what Gray had reported, he looked farther up the valley. His magnifier didn’t enlarge anything enough for him to tell whether there were more people hiding out there. He tried his infra shield but it only showed a blur. Even the four men coming toward him were hard to make out against the hot background.

  “Talk to me, Rabbit,” Lieutenant Bass said; he’d heard Gray’s shout and came to find out what was happening.

  “Four men, white flags, sir,” Ratliff reported. “I can’t make out any weapons.”

  “Can you tell if anybody else is out there?”

  “Negative. Infra can barely pick up those four, and I can’t make out anything that looks remotely like a human beyond them.”

  Bass climbed partway up the tower and took a look for himself. He estimated it would take the four men less than ten minutes to reach Camp Godenov. He dropped off the tower and called out, “Squad leaders up! Gray, keep a sharp eye out, let me know if anything changes.”

  In little more than a minute, Sergeants Ratliff, Kerr, and Kelly, along with Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, joined him in a circle.

  “Looks like somebody wants to surrender,” he said. “I don’t want to let them just walk into the camp, so I’ll go out to meet them, find out who they are and what they’re doing.”

  “Sir,” Hyakowa said, “let me go instead. If it’s a trap, the platoon can’t afford to lose you.”

  “Are you saying I can’t take care of myself, Staff Sergeant?”

  “Not at all, sir. Just being realistic.”

  Kelly cut off a snicker.

  “I’m going, no argument. I’ll have them demonstrate that they’re not a suicide mission, that they aren’t packed with explosives, before I let them get close. I want one fire team to go with me, and the rest of the platoon on alert. Wang, make sure our rear and flanks are covered. Now do it.”

  “Who do you want to take with you?” Hyakowa asked.

  Bass thought for a few seconds before saying, “Give me Doyle.”

  The others looked at him as though he’d asked for a team of army recruits. He looked back blandly.

  “All right, people,” Hyakowa said after a few seconds, “you heard the man. Kerr, get Doyle and his men for the boss. Put the rest of your squad in positions to cover our rear and flanks. Rabbit, put your people up front. Hound, you know where to put your guns.”

  Minutes later, Bass stepped outside Camp Godenov, accompanied by Corporal Doyle and his two men. Bass kept his sidearm hol-stered but the three enlisted men had their blasters pointed in the general direction of the four men approaching them.

  Bass and his escort marched a hundred meters from the edge of the camp and halted. He turned his helmet’s speaker to full volume and waited.

  When the four were fifty meters away, he shouted for them to halt. His magnified voice was loud enough to carry to well beyond where they were.

  “I’m Lieutenant Charlie Bass, Confederation Marine Corps,” he said when the four had halted. “State your name and business here.”

  “Sir,” the man standing slightly forward of the others shouted, “I’m Captain Sephai Fassbender, commandant of Sharp Edge’s Mining Camp Number Twenty-six. When I heard that hostilities had broken out between Sharp Edge and Confederation Marines, I refused to participate. I’m here with my garrison to surrender.”

  Bass cocked his head, hiding his surprise. “Your garrison is three men?”

  “No, sir. I have a hundred and thirty more men waiting in the valley.”

  “And they all want to surrender?”

  “Most of them do, yes, sir.”

  “And what about you and these men? I don’t see any weapons.”

  “That’s right. We came unarmed to show peaceful intent.”

  “How do I know you don’t have explosives strapped to your bodies, that you aren’t on a suicide mission?”

  Fassbender looked at Bass for a moment, then turned and said something to his men that the Marines couldn’t hear. He started stripping off his uniform, exposing himself to Ishtar’s heat. He snapped at his men, and they reluctantly did the same. When the four men were naked, they moved away from their piles of clothing.

  “Doyle, take one man and check their clothes for weapons or explosives.”

  “Ah, aye aye, sir. Summers, come with me.” The two Marines headed for the discarded uniforms.

  “Shoup, keep them covered,” Bass ordered.

  At the clothing, Doyle and Summers picked up each item and patted it down for weapons or other foreign objects. They didn’t find anything other than personal possessions. Doyle reported that to Bass, who told him to return.

  When Doyle and Summers were halfway back, Bass boomed out, “Get dressed before you roast out here.”

  Fassbender and the three men with him gratefully hustled into their uniforms and set the cooling systems to eat off some of their body heat. When they were dressed again, Bass signaled them to come to him.

  “Do you have comm with the rest of your people?” Bass asked. When Fassbender said he had a radio, Bass told him, “Have the rest of your people approach to five hundred meters and stack their weapons, then approach to one hundred meters, unarmed.”

  Fassbender grinned wryly. “I’m not sure that all of them know how to stack arms.”

  The way it worked out, the Sharp Edge mercenaries who didn’t know how to stack arms simply piled their rifles on the dirt. When they reached a hundred-meter distance, Bass had them spread out and sent first squad to search them for hidden weapons.

  After searching the mercenaries and reporting that they were unarmed except for their cartridge belts and knives, first squad went out to collect their weapons.

  That was when things got exciting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVEr />
  “Ah, sir? Someone’s coming down the valley. Sir?”

  PFC Fisher was on the tower and Lieutenant Bass stood near the tower’s base, watching as the Sharp Edge troops formed up just outside Camp Godenov.

  Bass was wondering what to do with more than a hundred prisoners until battalion or FIST sent transportation to take them away, and didn’t hear Fisher at first.

  “What’s that, Fisher?”

  “Someone’s coming down the valley, sir. It looks like a lot of Fuzzies.”

  “Fuzzies?” Bass asked. He climbed the tower and looked up the valley through his magnifier shield. He saw Fuzzies, hundreds of them. He couldn’t tell at this distance, but it looked like they were all armed males. He looked down for Sergeant Kerr.

  “Kerr, get your people out there to help first squad collect the weapons. And all of you, get back here most ricky-tick.” He looked around and found Sergeant Kelly. “Hound, guns alert on the prisoners.” He slid down the tower ladder and ran to where Captain Fassbender stood facing his troops.

  “Captain,” he said softly, “a lot of Fuzzies are approaching along the same route you came by. I don’t know what their intentions are, but they might be hostile. Just in case they are, I want you to march your people around to the rear of my camp and keep them quiet and in formation.”

  Fassbender looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “They’re probably coming after us,” he said. “They’ve been attacking the Sharp Edge mining camps. That’s why I’ve got so many men; reinforcements came in right before I decided to surrender to you Marines.”

  “If they see you’re our prisoners, maybe they won’t attack.”

  “But what if they do?”

  “We’ll cross that desert when we come to it,” Bass said, but he was already considering what to do if the Fuzzies did attack—and remembering the attack on the patrol he’d had up that valley only a couple of hours earlier.

  Mercury sent scouts to locate the column of Naked Ones who had abandoned the Rock Flower Clan locked in the cages at the mining camp, and to report back on where they were going.

  On the second day of his march, a scout reported that the Naked Ones were only a day ahead of Mercury’s war party and that their paths were converging. Mercury’s heart leaped in his chest; did that mean those Naked Ones were on their way to link up with the camp of the new Naked Ones? He ordered his fighters to pick up the pace; they would be much better off in the coming fight if they caught the marching Naked Ones first and killed them before they linked up with the new Naked Ones.

  The third day, scouts reported that the marching Naked Ones were mere hours ahead. Mercury thought it likely that he could close the gap before nightfall and have time to give his fighters a short rest before attacking. The Naked Ones had smaller eyes than the People, and he suspected their night vision wasn’t as sharp as that of the People. If that turned out to be true, the next night they could attack the camp of the new Naked Ones.

  But that wasn’t to be. The camp of the new Naked Ones was closer than Mercury had realized and the marching Naked Ones were going to reach it before he and his fighters caught up with them. Then his scouts reported finding where Henny and his scouts had fought the Naked Ones. Two were dead, and Henny and one other were not to be found.

  Mercury was furious. His anger was so great that thoughts of the advantages that better night vision would give his fighters in a night attack were driven from his mind, and he resolved to attack the Naked Ones as soon as his fighters were in position in front of the Naked Ones’ camp.

  “Everybody, take as many rifles as you can carry,” Sergeant Ratliff ordered as soon as his men reached the stacked and piled weapons left behind by the mercenaries. He began gathering rifles and slinging them over his shoulders. He managed eight in addition to his own blaster.

  Damn! he swore. The nine Marines of first squad wouldn’t be able to carry all of them at one time.

  “Get the piled rifles,” he told his men. “The stacked ones will be easier to spot for whoever comes out to get them.”

  “Three One, this is Six Actual,” Lieutenant Bass’s voice said into his helmet comm. “Fuzzies are coming your way. Gather as many weapons as you can, and get back here on the double. Second squad is on its way to help you.”

  “Roger, Six.” Then he said on his squad circuit, “Pick up as many rifles as you can double-time with. Second squad’s on their way, leave the rest for them. Move it!” He shrugged his shoulders, wondering if he’d be able to double-time five hundred meters with the load he had on his shoulders. He decided he could. He looked at his men. Each looked to have at least five rifles, and some of them were already running back to the camp. “All right, that’s enough,” he told the rest. “Let’s go. On the double!” He looked up the valley and swore again; Fuzzies, a lot of Fuzzies were running in his direction—and they didn’t look like they were making a social call. He gave another look around to make sure all of his men were headed back, then followed them, keeping an eye out for anybody who couldn’t keep up. Two hundred meters from the remaining weapons, he passed second squad on its way out.

  Second squad was starting back with most of the remaining flechette rifles when first squad, panting heavily, finally reached Camp Godenov’s perimeter, where Staff Sergeant Hyakowa directed them in piling the rifles and hustled them into defensive positions.

  “Secure the Fuzzies!” Bass ordered.

  Doc Hough hustled to bind both of the Fuzzy prisoners. When he got there, he found the wounded Fuzzy sleeping quietly, and Lieutenant Prang intently speaking and making signs with the Fuzzy who had gotten the leaves that seemed to ease PFC McGinty’s suffering. It looked like they might be making some progress, so Hough simply told Prang to be ready to take cover.

  “They’re shooting at us!” Corporal Claypoole squawked, sounding deeply offended. He had five rifles slung on his shoulders and was looking around to make sure no others were lying about when the first flechettes zinged past. He looked west and saw the closest Fuzzies were no more than five hundred meters away.

  “We’re loaded, honcho,” he radioed to Sergeant Kerr.

  “Then what’re you doing standing there? Get back to the perimeter. Now!”

  Claypoole didn’t need to be told twice, and neither did his men. They sprinted.

  Kerr saw that not all the rifles had been picked up. “Move, move, move!” he shouted, and the rest of second squad raced back toward the perimeter. The zings of flechette fire zipping past sped them on their way. The Marines hadn’t been able to carry all of the weapons, so Sergeant Kerr fired a few plasma bolts into the ones they had to leave behind, hoping to destroy them so the oncoming Fuzzies couldn’t use them.

  * * *

  “Lieutenant Bass, sir,” Captain Fassbender said, nervously looking at the hundreds of Fuzzies chasing second squad, “I request that you rearm my men and let us join in the fight. It looks like there are more Fuzzies than your command can defeat.”

  “You’ve never seen Marines fight, have you?” Bass asked, without taking his eyes off the oncoming Fuzzies.

  “Yes, I have, on Diamunde.”

  Bass cocked an eye at him. “What was your unit?”

  Fassbender chuckled. “We were on the same side, sir. Tenth Light Infantry. I saw you Marines take on those tanks. I wouldn’t go up against a Marine platoon with the hundred and thirty-five men I have, not even if I was in a strong defensive position and the Marines were in the open. But it looks like a whole battalion of Fuzzies charging your position, and your defenses aren’t all that strong. No offense intended, but I don’t think a single Marine platoon can stand up against an entire battalion. Particularly not a Fuzzy battalion armed with modern weapons.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement, sir. Now if you would be so good as to attend to your people and keep them under control.”

  “You’re a fool, Bass!” Fassbender snorted, but turned and headed back to where his troops waited. The mercenaries were nervous; man
y of them looked panicky, like they were ready to break and run.

  Fassbender was right, though. Camp Godenov didn’t have good defenses. Third platoon had only been there for three days. On the second day, a light earthmover from the Grandar Bay had come for a few hours to dig some defenses. It dug a meter-deep trench around the perimeter and piled the excavated dirt on the outside to make a low wall in front of the trench. It had also dug two larger holes on the front side of the camp and piled dirt around them to form bunkers, and dug the meter-and-a-half-deep hole for the command bunker. Unlike the command bunker, the two on the perimeter had plasteel overheads. There were no bunkers on the sides or rear of the perimeter.

  Bass watched second squad as the Marines ran toward the perimeter, staggering under their loads. A couple of them stumbled, but nobody fell. The NCOs kept everybody moving as fast as they could go. They were spread out, making them harder targets for the Fuzzies to hit. But that same spread put them before the platoon’s entire front, which meant the Marines in position couldn’t fire at the rapidly approaching Fuzzies because of the danger of hitting their own men.

  “Hound, put one of your guns way out on the left flank; try to give second squad some covering fire.”

  “Aye aye,” Sergeant Kelly replied. He moved one of his guns fifty meters to the left, where it was able to fire past second squad and hit one side of the Fuzzies’ charging line. He shouted for joy when he saw that side of the assault line drop.

  Bass thought while he watched the rapidly approaching Marines and the Fuzzies pursuing them. He remembered Fiesta de Santiago, when the rump element of his company met a couple of hundred bandits armed with stolen Marine-issue blasters and chameleons. The rump company, one platoon reinforced with half of the company’s assault platoon, beat off part of the assault by putting concentrated fire on the limestone some of them were firing from, and melting the rock into lava. But that rump element had the assault guns, which put out heavy streams of much more powerful plasma bolts than Kelly’s gun squad had. And he remembered on Elneal, where a single squad had fought off charging horsemen using the same tactic. But again, the horsemen were crossing a barren stretch of limestone and attacking on a very narrow front.