by Alan Black
Somewhere in front and behind him, he hoped, were other groups of humans, staggering their way south. He knew exactly how many people he was responsible for keeping safe. He was the governor, whether he wanted the job or not. There were forty-seven navy personnel counting himself and MCPO Thomas, subtracting Tammie Ryte, since she had revealed she wasn’t really navy, but an EMIS agent, dropped the navy number down to forty-six. LCDR Butcher pushed the number back up to forty-seven. He shook his head, he didn’t know where or who had shuttled the man down from the Vasco de Gama. They would have to wait for Butcher to regain consciousness to ask him if his shuttle pilot had died with the spaceship or was blown up on the ground.
There were four five-man teams from the medical corps. Each team included a doctor, who was an officer, and the nurses and technicians necessary to staff their small medical center around the clock. LTSG Dr. Menendez headed their number.
The civilians numbered thirty-three, with every specialist the Emperor thought might be necessary to investigate the planet for exploitation. There were geologists, planetologists, biologists, entomologists, cartographers, and even an arborist. Maybe they were still headed by Dr. Mohamed and maybe they weren’t. The man hadn’t been found by the time his group left the compound.
The marines were the largest human force on the planet. Major Numos commanded their company. Each of the four platoons had sixty-four marines for a total company complement of two hundred fifty-six men and women. Before the original Hyrocanian missile attack twelve had been killed on the planet and another dozen wounded, some seriously.
Some of Numos’s marines were hardened combat veterans like Allie, Hammermill, and Corporal Tuttle, but most were young and on their first marine deployment. He didn’t know how many marine veterans or rookies were left. Delta Platoon was gone with the exception of a few suited marines who had been on duty walking the compound parapet.
He didn’t know how many of the original three hundred fifty-seven in his command were alive. Numos had continued digging through the remains until he led his tiny group straggling out the back door. The survival rate from the bombing was dismal. Of those still walking, only a few were undamaged in some manner. Stone rubbed his ears. They hurt. His backpack rubbed against some cuts and bruises he didn’t know he had until Allie dropped the pack over his shoulders. Allie ignored her wounds, so did he. There wasn’t any way he was going to let his girlfriend out macho him.
For the hundredth time, he did a mental count of the humans with him. He had six navy counting himself. He had two medical corpsmen, eight civilian scientists, sixteen unsuited marines, and one lone EMIS agent. Even with half of the marines qualifying as walking wounded, he wanted more. Allie had them watching their perimeter, as the local fauna wasn’t particularly welcoming to human invaders. He needed more marines to herd the civilians, to keep them moving. More marines simply weren’t available.
He glanced at EMIS agent Tammie Ryte for the hundredth time and wished she had taken the time to put something on over her outfit besides a gun holster and a backpack. Those two little things did less than nothing to cover her. Staring at her with Allie around to see him gawking was dangerous. Allie would easily spot his interest even with only one good eye. He wouldn’t follow up on his interest. He liked bigger women, but dammit—
A shriek split the air. Before he could react, Ryte yanked a handgun from her holster. Without appearing to look, she shot a dive-bombing creature out of the sky. Ryte holstered her gun and went back to her personal assistant before the creature fell to the ground in a flutter of hollow feather-like tubes, landing at the feet of a couple of scientists. Rather than jump back in dismay, the scientists pounced on the creature like Jay and Peebee pouncing on lunch after a hard morning workout. Thomas moved in to keep the pair shuffling forward. One of the corpsman moved in just as fast when one of the scientists managed to get his hand hooked by the dead creature’s claw. The group shuffled forward while the scientist wailed about his damaged hand. The corpsman used a pair of pliers to work the claw free.
The scientists were all experts in more than one field, yet specialized in one area for exploring the planet. They were also generally older than the average military man or woman. Older didn’t mean they weren’t in good shape—not as good as any branch of the military—yet healthy and active. The Emperor had chosen the best minds wrapped in strong bodies to withstand the rigors of studying this new world. The newly wounded scientist was Dr. Emiliano Wyznewski, a geologist. Stone hadn’t had any personal contact with him in their short time on the planet. The woman with him was Dr. Kat Emmons, but Stone couldn’t remember her specialty. Then it dawned on him, she was the scientist Peebee had bitten. She was a xeno-psychologist and a behaviorist.
He shook his head in wonder. So many of their comrades had just been vaporized by a missile or crushed by the resulting blast’s shock wave, yet these civilians seemed to have already forgotten the danger they still faced, slipping easily into scientist mode. For most of the wounded scientists, their own blood-soaked bandages brought a certain level of reality to their situation, but these two and Triplett seemed to be completely oblivious to the continuing danger. All three appeared to accept the death and destruction behind them as an interesting twist in some long-term experiment.
Dr. Wyznewski was an odd man, letting his hair grow to shoulder length, it’s dull tan color shot full of grey and left untended. He always seemed to be in a hurry to go somewhere or do something, never sitting still. Now he was wailing in pain at his injured hand. Despite his wails, his eyes twinkled with delight as the corpsman dropped the dead bird back into his open hand, claw spike and all.
Dr. Emmons was a few years older than Wyznewski, with honey blonde hair. Stone wondered if she had it colored, genetically altered, or if it just came that way. Something about the way the woman moved reminded Stone of a dancer. Both scientists poked and prodded the dead bird with cautious enthusiasm.
Something skittered from under a log and raced away into the jungle. Peebee raced past him, hobbling on three legs, chasing after the skittering something. Stone didn’t call her back from the jungle. He could hear her crashing through the underbrush, wonking happily. She wouldn’t go far from his sight, or rather he couldn’t go far from her sight. Racing back, dropping a scaly creature at his feet, she looked at him with her expectant, front foot-dancing intensity that meant “throw it again”. The creature hit the ground at Stone’s feet, eliciting oohs and aahs from Wyznewski and Emmons. Before the scientists could pounce on the creature, it shot off into forest; this time burrowing into the top soil, moving faster than a human could run, leaving a rumpled trail through the dirt and thick layer of dead and dying plants.
Peebee chased it again, quickly coming back empty-handed. She didn’t appear disappointed at not capturing the creature again. She turned, racing to Jay as her sister stripped a thick bush of its red leaves. While most of the scientists were still in a state of shock from the Hyrocanian attack, a few showed their disappointment at not getting the creature back to sample. Allie turned a couple of them back towards the path, keeping them—most notably Wyznewski and Emmons—from chasing after the creature.
He slowed to let the two scientists catch up to him. “Doctor Wyznewski?” The man looked startled to be singled out by name, his eyes wide, peering out from behind his mop of hair. Stone almost grinned. Thomas had insisted he learn to match all of the faces in his command by name. He hadn’t succeeded with all of the marines by the time of the attack, but he could name all civilian, medical corps, and navy. He continued walking south as he spoke.
Wyznewski replied, “Yes, Governor Stone?”
“I might suggest trying not to touch anything with your bare hands. Even the most innocent looking flower is liable to be poisonous, full of spikes, or just a meat-eating animal in disguise.”
“I think I just learned that lesson,” the man said, shaking his hand, wincing at the pain, but still grinning happily. His nanites were already
beginning to dull the pain and heal the torn flesh.
Try as he might to avoid doing so, Stone caught sight of Ryte in her skintight outfit. He tried to look away and not gawk, but the scientist saw his gaze and laughed. Wyznewski’s female companion punched him gently in the shoulder and glared.
“Don’t laugh at the boy, you old goat. You aren’t much better. I’ve seen you staring at her taut little bottom all morning.” Emmons said.
Wyznewski laughed again, “I saw you looking a time or two also, Doctor Emmons.”
Emmons huffed, “I never said I didn’t. I just don’t laugh at someone else when they get caught staring.”
Stone said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. We’ve been bombed and shot at. People have been hurt or killed. Heck, even my girlfriend is right there and I can’t stop looking.”
Emmons patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry about that, Ensign Stone. You can’t help it, you’re what? Nineteen? Twenty?”
Wyznewski said, “Nope, Emmons. He’s only seventeen.”
Emmons and Stone looked at Wyznewski in surprise. The man shrugged. “So, I know—so what?”
Emmons said, “Anyway, Ensign Stone, seventeen is worse. That’s the magic age. Your body is so crammed full of hormones you couldn’t stop looking at pretty women if you poked your eyes out with a stick.”
Stone asked, “What about the nanites in my system? Aren’t they supposed to help with stuff like this?”
Emmons laughed, “Even combat enhanced nanites can’t compensate for the rush of chemicals you’re experiencing. That’s a good thing. If humans could control your male hormones, our species would quit reproducing and die out. You can’t excuse your behavior on faulty nanites, it’s just your youth.” She punched Wyznewski on the shoulder again. “What is your excuse, you old fart?”
Wyznewski laughed, “It’s like a pretty flower, why not look?” He waggled his injured hand, “But as that bird and Governor Stone pointed out, just because I look doesn’t mean I should touch.” He pointed a wrapped finger at Ryte’s backside. “I would bet the Emperor’s paycheck that her flower may not be poisoned or spiked, but it’s dangerous in its own right.”
Stone picked up his pace, leaving the two scientists arguing about the dangers of the local flora and fauna. It didn’t take him long before he was back at the head of his small group, right behind Allie. Instead of feeling sad about the recent dead or concerned about the danger to the living, his marine’s bottom wiggling quite nicely distracted him, once again.
He glanced up at his data view and tried to focus on Hammermill, or rather, what Hammermill was seeing as Stone’s view was much the same as his. The sound was off and the man gestured wildly at a small cluster of marines digging personal protection pits. A staff sergeant jumped into the middle of the group. He grabbed a massive suited marine and threw him a dozen feet away. He threw another marine a dozen feet in another direction. The rest of the cluster got the idea and scattered along a line, people digging their own protective pits. They all dug, dirt and rocks flying everywhere.
Stone watched as Hammer took great leaping strides along his line of defense. The line was short, far too short for a realistic defense. Many of the marines on the line were replacements and rookies, their suits looked so new Stone wouldn’t be surprised to see bits of the original packing still stuck here and there.
He was surprised to see them at all. Marine combat suits had built in camouflage making them invisible in all spectrums. The only way a person saw a marine was if the marine wanted to be seen. For some reason they refused to explain, marines called it their gilley setting.
Each platoon had started with a full complement of sixty-four marines. Hammermill’s Charlie Platoon had been off duty and hadn’t suffered any losses. 2LT Heller’s Delta Platoon had been on duty—they were almost dead to a man, Heller included. The few Delta survivors had been walking the parapets in their suits before the attack. They were spared by luck of being stuck at a duty post most marines looked on as punishment duty. The original planetary marine complement was already short five four-man fireteams, killed or seriously injured by the planet before the compound had been raised and completed.
Stone wondered why he was worried about the Hyrocanians. The planet would probably kill them before the enemy got here to do the job. As if on cue, Jay and Peebee stopped their romp through the forest. They drew themselves up to their full height, flapped their vestigial wings and bellowed. Their roar was rewarded by something nearby in the forest deciding now was a good time to run away. Jay and Peebee ignored whatever ran away and went back to crashing through the jungle, forging their path to the south.
Both of Delta Platoon’s surviving four-man fireteams had insisted on volunteering to stand with Charlie Platoon’s defensive line. They weren’t the best of Delta, but to a man they were angry at the Hyrocanians and feeling more than a little guilty at being alive when all of their mates were not. Adding them to Charlie allowed Numos to reassign a few more suited marines from Hammermill’s marines to protecting the collection point and helping move the wounded away from the compound. Against their expressed displeasure at being pulled away from the fight, he chose the least trained Charlie Platoon marines to protect the long, thin train of civilians and unsuited military personnel.
Staring at the video relay of Charlie Platoon, Stone wanted to shout at Hammermill to hide. He wanted to, but didn’t. He had seen the Hyrocanians up close and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. Hammermill had also met the Hyrocanians face-to-face and if the man wanted to hide he would hide. Obviously, he wanted to be seen, although Stone couldn’t imagine why. Surely, the Hyrocanians knew there was someone left alive at the compound for defense. Logically, setting a defensive line in front of the compound was the correct force placement. Charlie Platoon’s job was to delay the Hyrocanians, giving everyone else time to get away and allow the enemy into the compound without giving them time to realize the compound was a trap. In order to delay the enemy, Hammermill had to engage them, and once engaged, they would see him anyway.
The view from Hammermill’s feed spun in a whirl. Instead of checking his short defensive line, Hammermill ratcheted up the magnification on his heads up display. The HUD clearly marked four enemy shuttles zipping toward them, breaching the horizon at treetop level in a standard Hyrocanian diamond formation. These did not look like human shuttles. They looked more like huge tetrahedron pyramid shaped floating tanks, with thick armor and weapons prickling from every conceivable angle. There were no flat spaces where a small air car could land without crushing a weapons pod.
Hammermill didn’t go gilley or even duck into a prepared pit. He stood tall in his marine armor. Even though the shuttles were well out of small arms range, Hammermill raised his sidearm, a small weapon that wouldn’t do anything more than give away his position. In clear view of the video pick up, his finger twitched, then squeezed, emptying his magazine at the invading force.
Hammermill’s HUD showed a couple dozen marines firing an odd assortment of small arms at the approaching enemy shuttles. Two corporals jumped up and fired hand-held ground-to-air missiles at the front shuttle in the enemy’s formation. Alerted to the marine’s presence by the small arms fire, the front shuttle flicked the missiles away with ease.
All of the marines near Hammermill flickered and disappeared, invisible to everyone. Stone saw their locations marked by the carets on the lieutenant’s HUD. Stone noticed Hammermill was still able to view his own suit though he disappeared from the enemy’s view. Rather than duck into his prepared pit, or race away from the approaching enemy shuttles, Hammermill did the opposite of what Stone expected. He ran toward the enemy just as a Hyrocanian barrage blasted Charlie Platoon’s position. Whatever weapon they used set the dirt on fire and fused it into a slick glass-like ceramic.
Hammermill’s defensive line sprinted forward, skidding to a stop. Hammer slid behind a thick jumble of rocks, scattering some forest creatures sheltering among th
e boulders. He ignored them and tried to dig deep into the dirt. Digging as fast as he could, he still kept on eye on his HUD. He quit digging, and Stone noticed Hammermill switching his HUD view to watch another marine’s HUD.
The marine looked up and watched the rear of the Hyrocanian diamond formation slide overhead. Stone realized Hammermill had put some marines a couple miles farther into the jungle forward of his original defensive line. The marine glanced down at her hands. She stood and raised a heavy two-man base-mounted anti-aircraft missile launcher. A lance corporal’s face popped into view, his gilley still active, but his faceplate open. Stone recognized the man as one of Delta Platoon’s survivors. He grinned at the woman and pointed at the launch trigger. The sound was off on the dataport view, but Stone could tell the man said something about inappropriate sexual intercourse in inappropriate places on Hyrocanian anatomy. Stone wasn’t sure the enemy had asses, but he agreed with the sentiment as the lance corporal slammed his faceplate closed, disappearing completely.
The marine yanked the trigger, sending a full magazine of missiles streaking upwards to slam into the last ship in the diamond formation. From the woman’s peripheral vision, she could see another cluster of missiles streaking skyward at a shuttle on the left point of the diamond from another fireteam, but she didn’t stop to stare. Dropping the empty missile launcher, she grabbed her rifle, crouching at the ready to shoot anything worth killing.
Missiles struck both targeted shuttles, slamming into all four sides simultaneously. Explosions rocked her targeted enemy vessel, twisting it, sending it spinning like a die tossed on blue felt. When it broke apart, there was no explosion. Stone stared in wonder as three sides of the tetrahedron unhinged at the top pyramid point, dropping downward, apparently locking into place with the fourth side, the bottom. The shuttle had reconfigured into a triangle shaped platform with a smaller tetrahedron centered on the flat topside surface. The bottom surface was covered with weapons, all pointing at the ground. The small tetrahedron on top was unarmed and looked like a storage container. He almost slapped his forehead. Hyrocanians had four arms coming off their greasy fat bodies. It made sense they would design weapons platforms based on four parts wrapped around a central torso.
