More than 20 klicks in the distance, the skyline lit up. Hondo wished he could see what was going on, but just as the skipper didn’t go down to their level, neither did the flow of information. If the fighting became a threat to them, they would hear it, but until then, they could only imagine what was happening.
There was a whoosh of air as the battery opened fire with its Eden guns. The magnetic rings around the tubes accelerated the rounds, giving them a range of at least 60km (the Brotherhood Host kept the exact range a secret). Hondo counted 32 rounds going downrange.
“Standby for counter-battery fire,” one of the Brotherhood soldiers announced on the AOR open net.
Hondo and BK exchanged glances. The rounds wouldn’t even have landed yet, and if the Grubs had artillery of some sort, they hadn’t yet shown any sign of it.
“Maybe that’s just the Brothers’ SOP,” Hondo told her.
“Maybe,” BK said. “Shit, how long have we been supposedly cross-training? And we don’t have a friggin’ universal SOP?”
“Well, we’ve been busy with the Klucks,” Hondo said. “Not much time to work with the other humans.”
“Don’t let the staff sergeant hear you say Klucks,” she warned.
“That’s why I’m on the P2P, BK. I’m not that stupid.”
The term had begun to be put in use for a couple of months now. Some of the sounds made in the Klethos language could be taken for a chicken cluck, but the real reason was more likely that it rhymed with a certain word popular with soldiers for millennia. The brass was not amused, although when asked, their Klethos squad took no issue with the term.
“Still, I’m surprised at you, Mr. Straight-and-Narrow, letting your mouth come down in the gutter with us dirty peons.”
“Yeah, right. It’s not a bad word.”
“Cut the chatter,” Corporal Yetter said on the fire team net.
For a moment, Hondo thought he’d been listening in, but then he realized that for all intents and purposes, the P2Ps were secure, but their use was not. Yetter could see that they were chatting, even if he didn’t know about what.
“Yeah, McKeever. Cut the chatter,” BK said, assigning him the blame.
Hondo gave her an armored middle finger, then turned to look back towards the fight. Confederation soldiers were engaged in the distance, yet here they were BS’ing around. The sound of muffled explosions reached him, probably the first of the Eden rounds to reach the enemy.
As Hondo watched, two lights, almost like old-fashioned flares, reached up in the distance. Instead of arching back down, they continued, higher and higher, heading in their direction.
“Corporal Yetter, do you—” he started before his fire team leader cut him off.
“Yes, we see it. Wait for orders,”
In other words, shut up and let them figure out what to do.
“What the fuck’s that?” Sam asked as the two lights closed the distance.
“I wish I knew,” Hondo said, an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach as the lights came closer.
“Engage the lights,” the order came down as two avatars representing the lights appeared on his display. Range was six klicks and closing.
Hondo didn’t hesitate. His first M-48 was off within four seconds, his second cycling to his launcher to fire. All around him, Marine and Brotherhood weapons reached up to the lights, tracers and exhaust trails lighting up the sky. Hondo fired again just as his first hit—that is, just as his first passed through the light. The missile didn’t detonate. From the arming selection Hondo had given it, passing within ten meters of anything over five kilos would have triggered the warhead. He was sure he hadn’t missed. He checked his targeting AI and confirmed the missile had passed directly through the center of the sphere of light.
His second missile failed to detonate as well. Explosions filled the sky as the Cana tubes put out curtains of flak, but the two spheres kept advancing.
A crackle of energy went over Hondo’s head, and he spun to see two of the Klethos firing their bell-muzzled “ray guns,” one of the projectors that could shut down any Marine weapon. The other six Klethos stood silently and watched. Hondo spun back to see one of the lights seem to falter before picking back up to speed.
“This isn’t good,” Sam said in an understatement as the lights raced towards them.
Just as the spheres reached to the front edge of the battery’s position, tendrils of Tesla-like light shot out of them, all aimed at the ground. Twenty meters to his right, the nearest tube took a direct hit. Secondary tendrils bounced off the tube, hitting the two-man crew, dropping them to the dirt. A flash of light blinded him for a moment, overcoming his display, before the compensators brought his vision back to normal.
Now significantly smaller, the spheres kept advancing, 100 meters above the ground. Another crack of Klethos energy reached out and hit one of the spheres, and this time, it flickered and went out. The second sphere unleashed another barrage of light fingers. The sphere shrunk as its light weapons splayed across the ground until there was nothing left, and it simply went out.
Most of the outgoing fire had ceased, but rounds were still going out until a “Cease fire, cease fire,” echoed throughout the net.
Hondo stood in shock.
What the hell was that?
He started forward to the nearest tube, but while there hadn’t been any explosions, there was no doubt it had been hit. The tube was out of action, slumped and half-melted. The two Brotherhood gun-crew were both dramatically KIA, probably with too much damage for resurrection. Beyond that gun, Hondo could see that the next gun was down as well, a gaping hole in the breach.
Hondo wheeled and started running to the Klethos, who were simply standing as if nothing much had just happened.
“Hondo—” BK started, but he ran right past her.
“Sergeant Blue,” he asked the big Klethos warrior. “What was that?”
“That was a Grub,” she said as if explaining the obvious.
“No, I mean what kind of weapon?”
“Weapon? That was the Grub.”
“Not who shot it. What was it? I hit it with my M-48, and nothing happened.”
Sergeant Blue turned to the others and started a conversation. Staff Sergeant Aster was already consolidating the forces before the Klethos turned back to Hondo.
“The weapon is the Grub. Like a pimple,” she said, as if unfamiliar with the word. “The Grub sent the pimple out with its life, then spent that force on you humans. Boudica was able to deplete one after the first discharge weakened it.”
“Soldier, get your ass back here,” Sergeant Mbangwa passed to Hondo on the P2P. “And bring the Klucks with you.”
Hondo knew the Klethos had just said something significant, but he couldn’t figure out what. He hit the save on his conversation, then brought the Klethos squad with him as he joined the rest of the squad at the first destroyed tube.
Close up, it looked more like the ancient artist Dali had painted it. The gun slumped, as if the most of the very molecules holding it together had simply lost their grip.
Most of the Brotherhood soldiers, in their personal body armor, were dead, as were the Klethos attached to First Platoon. The Marines in their PICS and two squads of Klethos, those who’d been farthest away, were unhurt, although many of the PICS had been drained. To his surprise, Hondo’s PICS was now at 62%. The flash that had blinded him had evidently been a tendril of the weapon.
“OK, this is where we’re at,” Sergeant Mbangwa said. “The Brotherhood battery is gone. Doc Tolstoy is working on a handful of the soldiers, but it’s icicle time and hope they get zombie when we get them back to the real world.”
Hondo was surprised that any of them had a chance, but he hadn’t seen those on the far side of the battery. Maybe the carnage was less there.
“Staff Sergeant Jardine’s coming around right after she checks Third Platoon, so we stay here until she gives each PICS the once-over.”
The staff se
rgeant was CWO4 Donaldson’s assistant armorer and had been attached to the company headquarters for the mission.
“We’re on deck, so don’t anyone of you wander off. Once each fire team gets an up-check, go back to the perimeter and wait.”
“It’s always waiting,” BK passed on the fire team net.
“You want to go up there now?” Sam asked, pointing to the light show in the distance.
“Sergeant Blue, are your people OK?”
Hondo had forgotten that the Klethos were not monitored by the Marine battle AI. If any one of them were hurt, Sergeant Mbangwa wouldn’t know.
“We are all able to fight,” the Klethos warrior said.
Hondo looked over them. Two seemed worse for wear, but they weren’t complaining.
“I would’ve thought the Klucks would have run amok when we got hit, but they kinda just stood there. Only two of them fired their blunderbusses,” BK said.
Hondo agreed. Out there, he had to think two Klethos battalions were getting pummeled, but their eight seemed to be calm and collected.
It took Staff Sergeant Jardine fifteen minutes to reach them, all the time, the signs of battle lighting up the sky. Hondo ached to know what was going on. Nobody kept the non-rates informed, though. The staff sergeant gave Hondo the OK, reminding him that he was down to 62%.
As soon as the corporal was given the up-check, the four Marines went back to their position, facing outboard. They each had sectors to watch, and the sergeant had asked him to keep an eye on the Klethos, but his gaze kept straying to the light show. He wished someone would let them know what was going on.
“Hey, Sam. How about you and me go up there and show the Grubs what’s what?” BK passed.
“Nah, take Hondo. The fire team needs me here, right Corporal?”
“Yeah, right, Sam,” Yetter said. “And I even think the colonel would want you back in the rear with the gear with him.”
“Sounds good to me. Hot chow, showers. My kind of place.”
The banter interjected a feeling of normalcy to the team, which was amazing considering their situation. On a planet where no humans had been, alongside humanity’s enemy of the last century, and facing huge deadly caterpillars, nothing should have been ordinary.
Just a normal mission, McKeever. Nothing more.
Of course, the gods of war chose that moment to throw in a monkey wrench.
“Kilo Company, we have a new mission,” Captain Montgomery passed on the net. “All forces are pulling back for retrograde. We’re moving forward to provide flank security.”
“What, did they win already?” BK asked on the fire team net.
“Not if we’re there for security,” Hondo told her.
Their face shield displays lit up with streams of data laying out their new positions. Second Platoon was to take the relatively high ground ten klicks forward, becoming part of the west side of the security corridor. A PICS platoon could cover an 800-meter frontage. With one of their squads now Klethos, that had dropped to about 600 meters during training on Purgamentium. Now, though, their frontage was a full 1300 meters.
Either the threat is low, or things have gone to shit, and we’ve got to make due.
Given the mere fact that they were being given the mission, Hondo was betting on the latter.
Within moments, they were moving out in a battalion V, Kilo and Lima leading on opposite fingers of high ground, India at the V’s base and in the low ground with Mike hanging back. This gave them more firepower to the front and allowed quicker movement. Each platoon would drop off at its position as the battalion moved.
With the battalion in a V, Captain Montgomery had put the company in a wedge, Second Platoon on the highest ground, First and Third along the slopes. Hondo felt exposed as he jogged, his sensors reaching out for signs of danger. His PICS had fairly decent night vision, but it was limited to about 200 meters. Much farther than that, he has to rely on active pinging.
“How are the Klucks doing, Soldier?” Sergeant Mbangwa asked him on the P2P. “They keeping up?”
He looked back to his right, and he spotted six of the eight, all jogging along.
“Roger that, Sergeant. No problem. Still calm.”
“Let me know if they start falling back,” he passed, then added, “Or if they start pushing ahead.”
The Klethos had seemed to accept the need for unit integrity, but that was in training. Who knew if that discipline would hold?
They crested a low rise covered with boulders and had just started down the other slope when lights filled the air, causing his face shield to flare out for a moment before the compensators could take ahold.
“Contact left!” several Marines shouted at once over the net.
The fire team, with untold hours of immediate action drills, pivoted as one to face the threat. Fingers of light reached out, splashing Marines in Second Squad. One of them was highlighted in a corona of blue light not 100 meters from Hondo before collapsing in a heap.
“Move it,” Sergeant Mbangwa shouted, leading the charge.
The platoon had been ambushed by a Grub the size of a rhino, and most of Kilo was in the kill zone. Remaining in a kill zone invited death. Marines had a tried and true method of getting out of a kill zone: charge the ambushers.
Or, in this case, the ambusher, singular. Despite the size of the thing, Hondo couldn’t see it through the boulders. Its location was pretty clear, though, given the light show, and First Squad rushed to support Second.
“Check your Charlie telltales!” the company gunny passed over the net.
Hondo gave his display a quick look—the Charlie telltale’s light was a steady green. Sergeant Killkillary, the FO from Weapons Company, was about to call for fire from the mortarbots. The MM-30 Automated Battalion Mortar System was fairly new to the battalion, supposedly offering much more firepower and accuracy than the old mortars, but it required a separate telltale to keep the rounds from hitting, and taking out, PICS Marines.
He pushed that out of his mind as he ran forward, tendrils of light passing over his head as they sought out Marines. He still didn’t have a target. The Grub had picked a well-protected spot where it had good cover. The Marines were going to have to pry it out.
A series of explosions burst in the air in front of the charging Marines, the mortar rounds directing 2cm-wide, 90 cm-long steel bars at the Grub. The lights stopped for a moment, and Hondo felt a surge of excitement before several spheres of light shot up into the air. He’d just seen these, and he knew his M-48s had no effect, but he fired again, hoping that the close range might make a difference.
It didn’t. His missile flew through the light without detonating. His instinct was to take cover, but the spheres of light passed over his head.
“They’re going for the mortarbots,” BK said.
The MM-30’s were new pieces of gear, meant to eliminate the need for a Marine-manned mortar section, but they weren’t entirely trusted. Distrust or not, Hondo fervently hoped the mortarbots could stand up better than the Brotherhood tubes.
“Push forward, First,” Sergeant Mbangwa ordered. “Let’s see if hitting them can fuck up their command and control of the light spheres.”
Hondo stepped around a large boulder, and the Grub was suddenly in sight, forty meters away. This was right about at the edge of the M-48’s arming distance, but he fired anyway, the missile impacting an instant later. There was a slight flash of blue light on the thing’s side, but nothing else.
“I need something to kill it with!” Hondo shouted.
There was a crack of ionized air and a flash as something hit the Grub from above, and the enemy recoiled. For a moment, Hondo thought one of the ships had come to the rescue, but the blast was too small. It had to be one of the combat drones. Another beam hit the Grub, and he could see the fire was hurting it.
And then, from another 100 meters to the right of the Grub, a concentrated finger of light reached up into the sky.
“Sons-of-bitches, t
here’s another one of them,” Corporal Yetter said.
“Damn, glad the drone flushed that guy,” Sam said.
Hondo didn’t know what would have happened had the second Grub opened up on them in another ambush. The drone might not have scored a kill, but it might have just saved their asses.
“First Squad, shift right,” Lieutenant Silas ordered. “Sergeant Blue, move into the gap.”
Sergeant Mbangwa acknowledged the order, but the Klethos squad leader was silent.
“Sergeant Blue, acknowledge.”
“We are complying,” the Klethos finally passed.
“What the hell’s wrong with them?” BK asked on the team net. “They better get their asses in gear.”
“We need to fix these two in place while Third Platoon envelopes from the right. It’s up to Kilo, Marines. Lima is getting hit, too,” the lieutenant passed as the specifics popped up on their displays.
Hondo took a moment to look behind him. About a click away, on the other side of the high ground, more lights and explosions lit up the darkness.
“It’s a double ambush,” Hondo said over the fire team net. “Simple, but it’s working.”
“Don’t worry about double anything. We’ve got our mission right here,”
Corporal Yetter told him. “Skirmishers left.”
The four Marines slid into the formation, used to maximize firepower front toward a known enemy. Together, they advanced, pouring fire into the Grub. It was probably ineffective, but as the lieutenant had said when giving them the op order, it was possible that cumulative fire could get the job done when a single volley wasn’t enough.
Hondo cycled one of his volcs to his launcher. The MI-222 was a slow-burning incendiary grenade intended for destruction of equipment on the battlefield, but it could be launched out to about 40 meters as well. Given the evident shielding on the thing, he doubted the grenade would have much effect, but it wasn’t doing him much good inside his magazine.
With a thunk, the grenade arched upwards, its mechanical fuze already rotating. Hondo had already cycled in his 40mm when the volc hit the Grub right on top. It erupted into a tiny, bright star, and the Grub convulsed, its light tendrils momentarily stopping while is shook like a bronco.
Alliance (The United Federation Marine Corps' Grub Wars Book 1) Page 6
